Language death, maintenance and

revival
• people stop speaking a language and start
speaking another – language shift

• If every speaker shifts the language is no

longer spoken anywhere – language death
 Language death
• Very old – languages replaced by Latin and Greek in
the Roman Empire, Arabic in West Asia

• Distinction – slow peaceful change as a language

changes into another – Latin – French and Italian –
Sanskrit – Hindi and Punjabi – Classical Malay –
Modern Malay – is not language death
 continued
• Language death – one language is replaced by
another
• Death of speakers – Australian Aborigines,
Native Tasmanians and Native Caribbeans –
mainly by disease
• Most frequently – all speakers shift to other
languages – Australia and Americas
 Language Suicide
• Gradual replacement by a closely related
language

• Decreolisation in the Caribbean

• Maybe Tok Pisin in PNG

 Causes of death
• Occasionally by force – boarding school policy
for American Indians from 1890s

• Sometimes disease (Tasmania), flood,

earthquakes, AIDS in Africa
 continued
• More often cultural and economic – migration
to cities, intermarriage, education, conversion
to scriptural religions

• Economic rewards for language death – social

and cultural penalties for speaking old
language
 continued
• Acceleration with rise of modern empires –
French, English, Russian -- and migration

• (note also simultaneous rise of new

languages, pidgins and creoles and new
varieties – New Englishes)
 Today
• 6-10,000 world languages – at least half
threatened with extinction
• One century or two – only 1-200 languages
left?
• Any language with less than 1 million (100?)
speakers is in danger of extinction
• Especially Americas, Africa, Australia
 Examples
• California – 98 indigenous languages
• Shift to Spanish before 19th C., then English
• 45 -- no fluent speakers
• 17 – 1-5 speakers in 2001
• 36 spoken by old people
• 0 spoken by children
 continued
• World -- at least 400 languages have only
elderly speakers
• E.g. Busuu (Cameroon) – 8
• Lipan Apache (US) – 2 or 3
• Wadjigu (Australia) – 1?
• Maybe one died while you were writing
 Who are the murderers?

• European languages --English, Spanish,

Portuguese
• Regional languages – Hausa, Swahili, Malay
• Other local languages – esp. in Africa
 When does a language die?
• Common sense – when the least speaker dies
(or penultimate?)

• But Cornish died in 1696 (last monoglot

speaker), 1777 (last native speaker), early
C19th (last naturalistic learner), 1891 – last
student of a native speaker (?) – 1940s
Cornish words used for counting fish
 Is there a life after death?
• Dead languages may survive as languages of
religion – Coptic, some languages of the
Roman Empire – prophecies, magic and
ceremony -- Manx
• Often provide words for local animals and
plants and geography
• E.g. mysterious place names in Britain
 continued
• Khoisan languages in southern Africa – words
to Zulu and English – gogga (insect) kudu
(antelope)
• North American English – moose and squash
(Narragansett), raccoon, pecan hickory
(Powhatan), skunk (Abenaki)
 continued
• Australian English – dingo, koala, wallaby
(Dharuk) – also boomerang
• Taino (Caribbean) – maize, cassava, yucca
• Arawak (Caribbean) – cannibal
• Words for counting sheep in N. England –
Celtic language dead for 1000 years
 Consequences
• 2003 UNESCO paper – language death results
in the loss of unique biological and ecological
knowledge
• Reduces knowledge about human language
and mind
• Death of unique cultures
 continued
• Sapir-Whorf hypothesis – language
determines culture e.g. Hopi – lack of a sense
of time
• But criticised
• Close relationship of Australian languages
• Contradicted by Chomsky and UG
 Distinctive features of languages

• Hawaian – no consonant clusters – only five

vowels

• Khoisan – clicks
 Loss of local knowledge
• North Frisian – word for pituitary gland
indicated awareness that stress damages the
gland
• Amazon -- place names indicate where fish
can be found
• Africa – Names for plants indicate medicinal
properties
 Military value?

• US army – codes in Navaho – also Cherokee

(WWI) and Zulu

• Redundant now?
 Can dying languages be
maintained?
• Serious attempts from mid-20th century
in US, Australia, Europe
• Subjects in school, media, education
• Success is limited – economic and
cultural factors in North America and
Australia
 continued
• Absence of realistic domain except
ceremonial and political
• Requires motivation to overcome
economic disadvantages
• At best – will be used in formal situations
 continued
• Success requires political support –
usually absent with small languages
• Also fairly large population
• Success stories – French in Canada,
Welsh, Maori, Hawaian, Catalan, Irish
• Becomes a taught second language
 Canada
• Language shift from French to English
reversed
• Coercion – signboards – immigrants and
minorities required to be taught in French –
control of immigration
• Required control of provincial govt.
• Signs that shift is starting again
 Ireland
• Shift from Irish to English almost complete by
1920s
• Govt required signs in 2 languages – pass in
Irish for govt employment – economic
subsidies to Irish speaking areas
• Revival as a taught 2nd language – continued
decline as a 1st language
 continued
Language death can be prevented or language
death reversed if
• Supporters control local or national govt
• Group is distinct for historical or ethnic
reasons
• Language is culturally valued
 Is revival possible?
• Can a dead language be revived?
• Maybe Hebrew in Israel? – but exceptional
• Religious and cultural value
• Tradition of language shift
• Rejection of spoken languages
• Continued written and formal use
• Maybe modern Hebrew a new language
 continued
• Dead languages may be studied as a hobby
(Cornish), symbol of group identity (Sanskrit)
or for religious reasons (Coptic)
• But no (maybe one) examples of real revival
• Language creation is just as pointless.
 Problems
• Some dead languages not written
• Some died before they could be recorded
(Cornish)
• Even if recorded may be problems – last
speaker of Dalmatian had no teeth (dental
fricatives?)
• Which variety? – from what period?
 Final observation
• New varieties come into existence – Beduin
Sign language – pidgins – new dialects – New
Englishes
• In time may become languages – laissez-faire
policy for language birth as well as language
death?