1. Endangered Languages

2. You’ve come too late to learn our language, you
should have come earlier. Nowadays we are a
numbered people.
~ Marta Kongarayeva (born 1930), Tofa speaker
Harrison, K. David. 2007. When Languages Die. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

3. Pat Gabori
• One of the last 8
speakers of Kayardild
• Passed away in 2009
Evans, Nicholas. 2010. Dying Words.
Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell.

4. Boa Sr
• Last speaker of Aka-Bo
• Passed away in 2010,
at age ~85

5. Great Andamanese Languages
• Aka-Bo • Extinct
• Aka-Bea • Extinct
• Akar-Bale • Extinct
• Aka-Kede • Extinct
• Aka-Kol • Extinct
• Oko-Juwoi • Extinct
• A-Pucikwar • Extinct
• Aka-Cari • Extinct
• Aka-Kora • Extinct
• Aka-Jeru • 7 speakers (2006)

6. More Endangered Languages
• Language # of speakers
• Abenaki-Penobscot 20
• Ainu 0
• Coeur d’Alene 20
• Eyak 2
• Iowa 5
• Mandan 6
• Menomini 50
• Osage 5
• Sirenikski Eskimo 2
• Tuscarora 30
• Ubykh 1
• Yokuts 10

7. The Last Speakers of Chitimacha
Photos courtesy of the National
Anthropological Archives

8. Overview
1. State of Languages Today
2. History of the Causes
3. History of the Responses
4. Language Profile: Chitimacha
5. Language Profile: Navajo

9. How Many Languages?
• Depends on how you define language.
• Ruhlen (1987) estimates around 5,000.
• Grimes (1988) estimates between 6,000-
6,500.
• For our purposes, lets assume that there are
about 6,000 languages in the world.

10. The Distribution of Languages in the
World
• Region # of languages
• Asia + Pacific 3,000 (50%)
• Africa 1,900 (30%)
• Americas 900 (15%)
• Europe + Mid. East 275 (4%)

12. Countries by Number of Languages
Image courtesy of Worldmapper.com

13. Endangered Languages by Region
Region # Extinct % Extinct
• Siberia/Alaska 45/50 90
• USA/Canada 149/187 80
• Mesoamerica 50/300 17
• South America 110/400 27
• Australia 225/250 90
• Russia 45/65 70

14. Critically Endangered Languages
UNESCO Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger

15. Languages by Vitality
UNESCO Atlas of the World's
Languages in Danger

16. • Smallest
languages
• 8 million
3,586 0.2% speakers
• Mid-sized
languages
• 1,200 million
2,935 20.4% speakers
• Biggest languages
• 4,500
83 79.5% million
speakers
Harrison, K. David. 2007. When
Languages Die.

17. Moribund Languages
• Are children learning the language?
• “The question for us here is this: how
many languages still spoken today are no
longer being learning by children? This is
a key question, as such languages are no
longer viable, and can be defined as
moribund, thus to become extinct during
the *next+ century…” (Krauss, 1992)

18. Moribund Analysis
• Krauss (1992) estimates, based largely on
demographic information, that roughly half
the world’s languages will be extinct by the
close of the next century.
• 3,000/6,000

19. A Another Analysis:
• Consider the conditions where the
concentration of languages is the highest.
• 9 countries with over 200 languages
• How stable are these countries?
• How likely are minority language likely to be
protected?

20. The Top Nine Countries
• Papua New Gunea 850
• Indonesia 670
• Nigeria 410
• India 380
• Cameroon 270
• Australia 250
• Mexico 240
• Zaire 210
• Brazil 210
(another 13 have 160-100 each)
Top 22 countries = 5,000 languages

21. What leads to language mortality?
• Some factors we might expect:
• war
• genocide
• social or economic upheaval
• displacement
• forced assimilation

22. Some factors which we might not
expect
• nation state
• universal education
• television
• radio
• newspaper
• globalization

23. What about “safe” languages?
• Does official state support protect languages?
• About 200 sovereign states
• English (45)
• French (30)
• Spanish (20)
• Arabic (20)
• Portuguese (6)

24. Does number of speakers protect
languages?
• languages with one million speakers
– between 200-250 (with a lot of overlap with
previous category)
• languages with .5 million speakers
– about 300
• languages with .1 million speakers
– about 600

25. Number of speakers may not be
enough protection
• Breton had one million speakers in living
memory, but now has few children learning it.
• Navajo had .1 million a generation ago, but
now has a very uncertain future.

26. Outcome of Analysis
• The conclusion is that perhaps as much as
90% of the world’s languages could be extinct
in one hundred years.

27. Compare to biological diversity
• Mammals
– about 4,400 species.
– 326 endangered + threatened.
– 7.4% worst case scenario.

28. Compare to biological diversity
• -Birds
– about 8,600 species.
– 231 endangered and threatened.
– 2.7% worst case scenario.

29. Reasons to be alarmed
• Scientific reasons
• linguistic diversity
• UG
– Ubykh (Northwest Caucasian language)
– Has over 80 consonants.

30. Loss of Culture
• “Of supreme significance in relation to
linguistic diversity, and to local languages in
particular, is the simple truth that language—
in the general, multifaceted sense—embodies
the intellectual wealth of the people who use
it.” (Krauss, 1992)

31. Loss of Culture
• “Some forms of verbal art—verse, song, or
chant—depend crucially on morphological
and phonological, even syntactic, properties of
the language in which it is formed. In such
cases the art could not exist without the
language, quite literally.” (Krauss, 1992)

32. Cultural reasons
• classifiers
• kinship systems
• space

33. What to do?
• Documentation of endangered languages
before they disappear.
– Grammar
– Lexicon
– Corpus of texts
– Audio/video of native speakers

34. For ‘unsafe’ languages
• Children still learning the language
• Change language policy to support the
language and culture of minority language.
• Produce pedagogical materials in the
endangered language.

35. Responses to threats to linguistic diversity
• Do nothing
• Document endangered languages
• Engage in revitalization activities

36. 1. The Spanish Missionaries
2. Colonial Explorations
3. The Boasian Linguists
4. The Rise of Generativism
5. Revitalization
RESPONSES & REVITALIZATION

37. The Spanish Missionaries
1500s – 1700s
• Alonso de Molina – Nahuatl
• Franciscans, Dominicans, Augustinians each wanted
their own Nahuatl grammar
• Tradition continued in S. America (Quechua), N.
America (Guale, Timucua; Florida), and Brazil
• Jesuits were excellent field linguists
– Numerous manuscripts lost when they were expelled from
Paraguay
• By 1700, 21 grammars were published
• Missionary work was (and is – SIL) common globally
Shobhana L. Chelliah & Willem J. de Reuse. 2011. Handbook of Descriptive Linguistic Fieldwork. Dodrecht: Springer.

38. Colonial Explorations
1700 – 1900
• Jefferson lists
(Unkechaug)
• Bureau of American
Ethnology
• Roger Williams –
Narragansett (Rhode
Island)
• Intense interest in
comparative linguistics

39. The Boasian Linguists
1900s – 1950s
• Franz Boas – describing each language and
culture in its own terms
• Sparked a whole cadre of field linguists
– Mary Haas
– Morris Swadesh
– Edward Sapir
– Benjamin Lee Whorf
– J. P. Harrington
– Margaret Mead
– Ruth Benedict

40. The Rise of Generativism
1950s – 1980s
• Leonard Bloomfield, Language (1933)
– Structuralist linguistics
– Comprehensive description of N. American languages
– Meaning is irrelevant to understanding how language
operates
• Noam Chomsky, Syntactic Structures (1959)
– Transformational grammar
– Universal Grammar (later works)
– Introspection as a method

41. Revitalization
1990s – 2010s
• 1992 – Language publishes seminal article
– Ken Hale – On endangered languages and the
safeguarding of diversity
– Ken Hale – Language endangerment and the human
value of linguistic diversity
– Krauss – The world’s languages in crisis
• Training indigenous speakers as linguists (Hale)
• Journals (LD&C), Conferences (LD&D, SILS, SSILA),
Organizations (FEL, ELF)
• Recognition and support from the field

42. PROFILE OF AN ENDANGERED
LANGUAGE: CHITIMACHA

43. Prehistory – 1940
• Lived in the Louisiana area for 2,500 – 6,000 years
• Language isolate – possibly the first inhabitants
• 1700 – diseases halved the population
• ca. 1706 – 1718 – French colonists actively enslaved tribe
• 1727 – Chitimacha rediscovered west of Mississippi
• 1802 – Jefferson list collected by Martin Duralde
• 1881 – 1882 – Documented by Albert S. Gatschet
• 1907 – 1920 – Documented by John R. Swanton
• 1917 – sold tribal land to the government
• 1930 – population dropped to 51 people
• 1930 – 1934 – Language documented by Morris Swadesh
• 1934 – Chief Benjamin Paul, last expertly fluent speaker, dies
• 1940 – Delphine Ducloux, last proficient speaker, dies
• Documentation

44. Revitalization
1990? - 2011
• 2000 census – 720 registered Chitimacha
• 3 beginner – intermediate speakers
• 1995 – Revitalization program begins
• 2008 – Chitimacha Rosetta Stone begins
– Constructed from Swadesh’s documentation
• 2010 – Chitimacha Rosetta Stone released
– Being learned by every student in school
• 2010 – Preschool immersion program begins
• In progress – Chitimacha dictionary and grammar

45. PROFILE OF AN ENDANGERED
LANGUAGE: NAVAJO

46. Navajo Today
• Most widely spoken American Indian language
• 1970 – 90% of BIA boarding school children
spoke Navajo
• 1992 – 18% of preschoolers knew Navajo
• 2011 – Less than 5% of school-aged children
• 2006 – Navajo Language Renaissance
• 2010 – Rosetta Stone released
• In progress – Navajo workbooks

47. • It is unfortunately true that very few people
(including most of their own speakers) care
about the impending demise of small
languages.
Joshua Fishman 1995. On the limits of ethnolinguistic democracy.
p. 60.

48. Let them die?
• What if half the world's languages are
on the verge of extinction? Let them
die in peace.
Kenan Malik 2000. Let them die. Prospect.
November.