LANGUAGES around the world are dying off at a tremendous rate. Linguists estimate that between 20 per cent and 50 per cent of the 6000 languages now spoken are no longer being taught to children, and will become extinct in the next century. According to linguists at the AAAS, the loss of language is bad not only for linguists but for all humanity.
鈥淭he world would be less beautiful and less interesting without linguistic diversity,鈥� said Michael Krauss of the University of Alaska, Fairbanks. 鈥淚 challenge anyone to prove to me we are better off without linguistic diversity.鈥�
Languages are dying as improved transport and telecommunications bring different peoples into closer contact, and speakers of minority tongues abandon them for the languages of more dominant cultures. Sometimes the switch is voluntary, but often it is forced. Earlier this century, for example, American Indian schoolchildren were punished for speaking their native tongue.
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The most basic reason why linguistic diversity should be preserved is that language helps people to retain their culture. But speakers cited several other good reasons too. 鈥淎s linguists we need linguistic diversity,鈥� said Kenneth Hale of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. 鈥淲e wouldn鈥檛 even know what questions to ask with only one language.鈥�
Linguists are especially interested in the rules of grammar that seem common to all languages, because they provide important clues to how the mind works. As an example, Hale pointed to the distinction between singular and plural forms, such as 鈥渃at鈥� and 鈥渃ats鈥�. Trying to figure out the deeper rule that allows this distinction, a linguist who knew only English might come up with two possible explanations.
One is that built into the brain there is a basic binary distinction between 鈥渙ne鈥� and 鈥渕ore than one鈥�. Alternatively, there might be in-built distinctions between one subject, two, three or more. In English, it is impossible to tell which of these processes is at work. But by studying many different languages, linguists find the common factor is the binary distinction.
Hale also argued that language should be seen as 鈥渢he product of human intellectual toil鈥� rather than something that evolves unaided. For example, he studied a language called Damin, an offshoot of Lardil, an Australian Aboriginal tongue. Damin was a special language spoken only by young men in the first few years after their initiation. It was an extremely abstract, simplified form of Lardil, which could be taught to initiates in a few hours.
Hale said the genius of Damin was the way it broke Lardil down into its most basic concepts. Lardil, for example, has many words for 鈥渇ish鈥� while Damin has only two 鈥� one meaning 鈥渂ony fish鈥�, and one meaning 鈥渃artilaginous fish鈥�. This shows that for Lardil speakers, there is a fundamental distinction between the two.
In a similar vein, Lardil has about 90 words to cover pronouns such as 鈥渕e鈥� and 鈥測ou鈥� and determiners such as 鈥渢his鈥� and 鈥渢hat鈥�. But in Damin, these are boiled down to two words, 鈥渘iaa鈥� and 鈥渘iuu鈥�, meaning 鈥淚鈥� and 鈥渘ot-I鈥�.
鈥淚 hope you鈥檒l realise this is a very big invention,鈥� said Hale. 鈥淚t鈥檚 not just joking around.鈥� It is as if an expert linguist had sat down to make a basic study of the Lardil language, he said. Unfortunately, Damin is no longer spoken, and Lardil is dying out.