Language endangerment

Like the many plant and animal species, the languages of our world face the risk of extinction. What are the contributors of this cultural loss?

There are currently 7106 living languages spoken across the globe according to the Ethnologue, a comprehensive catalogue of world languages. Some of these languages currently face the threat of extinction: Globalization and modernization have long been considered a trigger for the loss of languages amongst the world population. Although these generalized terms seem to explain it all, the interplay between several factors such as temperature, economic growth, population size, survival rate and geographical span determines the success and, ultimately, the preservation of a language.

By combining the data provided by Ethnologue and the index of linguistic diversity (ILD) database (a global database which provides information on the changes in the numbers of speakers of a particular language over time), Amano et al. explore the varied risk factors (three in particular) to identify global patterns in the decline of languages. The result is a set of interesting observations, including the one that languages face great threat in economically developed regions, where the languages spoken within a small population (with a small range) are endangered due to the combined impact of economic growth and political/educational advancement, resulting in the dominance of widely-spoken languages. Further, in temperate regions with strong economies, even the wildlife populations have seen drastic stability in comparison to spoken languages, suggesting a success in biodiversity conservation in contrast to linguistic conservation within these regions.

Thus, there appears to be global hotspots which are vulnerable to language extinction and require stronger language conservation efforts. After all, the ability to communicate through languages is an exceptional trait that we humans have developed through the course of evolution, and preservation of the diversity of these languages is essential for both cultural and scientific purposes. 

Cover image: Language diversity (Tobias Mikkelsen/Flickr)

References

Global distribution and drivers of language extinction risk, Proc. R. Soc. B, (2014) doi: 10.1098/rspb.2014.1574

Stats

Post a comment

You need to be signed in to post comments. You can sign in here.

Comments

• 

  Alen Piljić Tuesday, 07 October 2014 - 10:38 UTC

  OK... got it.

• 

  Nithya Babu Rajendran Tuesday, 07 October 2014 - 09:17 UTC

  For example, take the temperature seasonality (difference in temperatures between the seasons, i.e., summer and winter), the lesser it is, the more stable the climate, and therefore, consistent productivity in terms of agriculture and assured self-sustenance for the population, which in turn can flourish, thus ensuring the preservation of the language. The authors, of course, state that the temperature is not a major contributing factor in comparison to the socioeconomic conditions.
  

• 

  Alen Piljić Monday, 06 October 2014 - 23:33 UTC

  Didn't get how temperature influences preservation of a language...?