Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, February 21, 1995 TAG: 9502210049
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: ATLANTA LENGTH: Medium
The world's 6,000 languages are dying off quickly, and up to half of them probably will become extinct during the next century, experts predict.
``I call this a catastrophe - the rate of loss of mankind's linguistic diversity,'' said Michael Krauss of the University of Alaska.
While languages once were suppressed by government policy, the forces conspiring against native tongues now seem to be largely electronic. Satellite television, cellular telephones, the Internet all let people speak to each other instantly all over the world, and all drive the need for languages that many understand.
In most cases, that language is English. Even defenders of dying languages concede this is not necessarily a bad thing, because a common language clearly allows people to communicate easily. For instance, scientists the world over often speak to each other in English.
However, linguists attending a conference Saturday of the American Association for the Advancement of Science urged the preservation of small languages as second, or even third, languages, rather than allowing them to be swallowed up by English, Arabic, Spanish and other major languages.
``We should care about this,'' Krauss said. ``The world will be less interesting, less beautiful.''
Krauss said that in prehistoric times, humans probably spoke 10,000 to 15,000 languages. Now, about 6,000 exist and the number is dropping fast.
Krauss estimated that 20 percent to 50 percent of the world's languages no longer are being learned by children.
``They are beyond endangerment,'' he said. ``They are the living dead,'' and all will disappear in the next century.
The average language is spoken by 5,000 to 10,000 people. Krauss said, however, that only those with more than 1 million speakers have a likely future.
He estimated that about 600 languages are assured of being around in the year 2100.
Many of the small languages on the verge of dying out are in tropical parts of the world, especially Africa and Indonesia, he said.
The United States is losing languages fast. Leanne Hinton of the University of California at Berkeley said North America has 200 to 250 native languages, and about 50 of them are in California.
All the California Indian languages are in trouble. None is being learned widely by children or used in daily commerce. Twenty have become extinct this century; just last month, the lone speaker of Northern Pomo, a woman in her 80s, died.
Hinton said Native American languages were suppressed until the 1960s. Indian children sent to boarding schools were punished for speaking their parents' language.
A movement exists among California Indians to learn the elders' tongue before it's too late. Some tribes have set up summer language camps for youngsters.
by CNB