UNIT 2: WHY DO LANGUAGES DISAPPEAR?

Have you ever wondered why some languages disappear? Is it because the majority of people worldwide speak a certain well-known language? Is it because some languages are undervalued by their speakers? Here you will have the chance to explore the hidden reasons that lead to language hierarchies and language death.

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There is a broad diversity of languages. Today, there are around 7,000 languages spoken around the world. Many of them, though, are either extinct or not widely spoken. You can take Latin or Ancient Greek as examples. Latin has been kept alive and is known worldwide, but not many speak it, as is the case of Ancient Greek as well, since it’s a language which only few people still use. 

There are various reasons for the decline of languages. One of the major ones is globalisation, since people often find it more practical to learn a language that is spoken all over the world instead of one that is only spoken by a small community. Urbanisation also plays a big role. As many young people move to bigger cities, languages from smaller rural regions may not be passed down to the next generations. Therefore, migration has a significant impact on languages as well. These are some factors that influence a language being less spoken, but it might also happen that a language abruptly stops being used. This is what we call language death.

A language dies when there is nobody that speaks it anymore. It may continue being remembered in a recorded form. Traditionally, this was in writing and more recently, as part of sound or of video archive. Language diversity is under threat and the processes of endangerment continue, with estimated rates of loss equivalent to one language disappearing every one to three months. The most pessimistic forecasts propose that 90% of the world's languages will vanish within a century. In fact, without intervention, the rate of language loss could triple within 40 years, resulting in the disappearance of at least one language per month. To prevent more than half of the languages from disappearing by the end of the century, it's crucial to make immediate investments in documenting them, promoting bilingual education programs, and supporting community-based initiatives. 

Language change and shift represent natural aspects of human cultural evolution. Nevertheless, the rapid decline in global language diversity has been significantly accelerated. Various factors, including social, demographic, historical, and political influences, contribute to the endangerment of languages.