2. Disclaimer:
There’s actually nothing
offensive or politically
incorrect about this
presentation.
How boring. 2

3. Overview
1. The standard story
2. Question the received wisdom
3. Reach the same conclusions
Why bother with this exercise?
0 Conclusion: Language shift is complicated. Overly
simplistic representations don’t give us the insights
we need to address the issue.
3

4. The Received Story
0 Originally 10,000 0 Responses:
languages4
0 Document them before
0 6,909 living languages they die out
left10
0 Revitalization and
0 50% - 90% of those will go
extinct by 210014, 7 reclamation programs
0 (Some) causes: 0 Government support for
0 Globalization endangered languages
0 Technology
0 Overt political repression
0 Cultural dominance
4

5. 100,000,0 10,000,00
2,014 1,038 00 to 999, 0 to 99,99
0% 0% 999,999 9,999
1,824 339 0% 1%
1% 1 to 9 1,000,000
0% 2% to 9,999,
895 133 10 to 99 999
5% 5% 5%
0%
100,000 t
304 100 to 99 o 999,999
16% 9 13%
8 16%
39%
77 10,000 to
1,000 to 9 99,999
39% ,999 28%
30%
Languages as % of World Languages by Speaker
Population10 Population10 5

6. Endangered Languages3
3,167 currently endangered
6

7. Language Vitality 9
4%
9%
Extinct since 1950
10% Severely endangered
Critically endangered
Vulnerable
57% 10% Definitely endangered
Safe or data-deficient
11%
7

8. Language Vitality 9
4%
9%
Extinct since 1950
10% Severely endangered
Critically endangered
??? Vulnerable
Data-deficient 10% Definitely endangered
Safe
Data-deficient
11%
???
Safe
8

9. Why worry about language
death?
0 Value to linguistic science
0 Irreplacable cultural heritage
0 Loss of indigenous knowledge about the world
0 Loss of indigenous perspectives on the world
0 Loss of cultural identity
0 Concommitant decline in biodiversity
0 Language as a human right
0 Benefits of mother tongue education and bilingualism
0 Language death is happening faster now than before
9

10. A Closer Look at Language
Death
“There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.”
~ Mark Twain
10

11. The Original Languages
ante 8,000 BC
0 Neolithic population estimate: 10 million9
0 Hunter-gathering can only support small communities
0 Constant fracturing of groups into new branches
0 Each group speaks a slightly different language variety
0 Received wisdom:
0 < ~500 – 1,000 speakers per language7
0 ~ 5,000 – 20,000 languages as of 10,000 y.a.
11

12. NSW Department of Education and Communities: 12
http://www.curriculumsupport.education.nsw.gov.au/shared/abmaps/nations.htm

13. 0 Question: Languages or dialect continuum?
0 Question: Can we meaningfully compare language
statistics from today to the Paleolithic?
13

14. The Agrarian Revolution
8,000 – 5,000 BC
0 Sedentary lifestyle supports larger communities
0 Languages grow and crowd each other out / absorb
other speaker communities
0 Received wisdom:
0 Languages have been continuously on the decline
0 Decrease in # of languages offset by population
explosion7
0 Earliest instance of urbanization
0 Renfew-Bellwood Effect – decrease in deep-level
diversity, i.e. the number of language families7
14

15. 0 Question: Is language death a modern phenomenon?
0 Question: Are the causes of language death today
compared to in early history different in kind or
simply degree? Is language death today a
fundamentally different phenomenon?
15

16. Counting Languages
0 What’s a language?
0 Mutual intelligibility
L1
L2
Dialect chain
L3
L4
L5
16

17. Counting Languages
0 What’s a language?
0 Mutual intelligibility
L1
L2
L3
L4
L5
17

18. Counting Languages
0 What’s a language?
0 Mutual intelligibility
L1
0 Politics
0 Chinese
L2
0 Serbo-Croation L3 = L1 or L2?
0 Language attitudes
L3
0 Scandanavian languages
L4
L5
18

19. Counting Languages
0 What’s a speaker? 0 Are the numbers
0 Cultural knowledge = accurate?5
linguistic knowledge 0 Self-reporting
0 Do younger speakers
count? 0 Out-of-date data
0 Knowledge of 0 Under-reporting
quotes, proverbs 0 Australian Native Title1
0 Do outsiders count? 0 Over-reporting
0 Linguists?
0 A few phrases = speaker
0 Non-ethnic community
members?
19

20. Ecological Metaphors
0 Originally 10,000 0 Responses:
languages 0 Document them before
0 6,909 living languages left they die out
0 50% - 90% of those will go 0 Revitalization and
extinct by 2100 reclamation programs
0 (Some) causes: 0 Government support for
0 Globalization endangered languages
0 Technology
0 Overt political repression
0 Cultural dominance
20

21. Ecological Metaphors
0 Language death / extinction
0 Competition
0 Language ecologies
0 Preservation / revitalization
0 Question: Are languages like organisms? How so?
Why not?
0 Question: Which of these metaphors are useful? In
what ways?
21

22. Language & Ecology
0 Clear correlation between linguistic and biological
diversity16
0 Language ecology – relationship between languages
and the people who speak them5, 6
0 Strong version – theory of language competition13
0 Ecolinguistics – branch of language ecology5
0 Discounts notion of competition
0 Focus on connection between language and their
‘habitat’ or social, political, and economic contexts
22

23. 23

24. 0 Question: Are the causes of language death and biological
extinction the same?
0 Question: Are the metaphors of language competition and
ecologies useful? Or do they obscure the issues?
0 Question: Do languages compete/die/have habitats, or do
speakers do, or both?
0 Question: What terminology could we use that might more
accurately represent these phenomena?
0 Question: Do you think any of the terminology we’ve
discussed is offensive or denigrating?
24

25. 0 Question: Languages naturally change and differentiate
from each other over time. Is the rate of linguistic
diversification equal to the rate of language shift / death?
0 Question: Should we distinguish different types of
diversity? What types?
0 Question: Will dying languages be replaced by new ones?
Will the rate of replacement equal the rate of extinction?
25

26. Language Birth
0 Chinglish (China)
0 Pidgins and creoles
0 Singlish (Singapore)
0 Revitalized languages 0 Sheng (Nairobi)
0 ol (Brazil)
0 Linguistic diversification
0 Latin > 0 Nubi (Arabic: Kenya)
Spanish, Catalan, Corsic 0 Afrikaans (S. Africa)
an, French, Italian, Galici 0 Gullah (S.E. U.S. coast)
an, Mozarabic, Occitan, 0 Krio (Sierra Leone)
0 Kreyol (Liberia)
Portugese, Romansh
0 Hatian Creole (Haiti)
0 Regular processes of 0 Patwa (Dominica)
historical change 0 Ladino (Judeo-Spanish)
26

27. Hunting for the Roots of the
Language Shift
0 Question: How true are the following statements?
0 ‘Indigenous languages are dying because they can’t
express concepts needed for the modern world.’
0 ‘Indigenous languages are dying because they’re some
of the most complex and hardest to learn.’
0 Question: What is globalization?
0 Is globalization a cause or a result of language shift, or
both?
0 How can globalization actually support linguistic
diversity?
27

28. Overt and Covert Causes
0 Natural catastrophes 0 Linguistic nationalism
0 War and genocide 0 Economic conditions
0 Language policy 0 Political autonomy
0 Compulsory education 0 Language attitudes and
associations
0 Revitalization efforts?
0 Technology?
28

29. 0 Question: How is language shift in autochthonous
communities similar or different to language shift in
immigrant communities?
0 Question: Which is more important for understanding
language shift – the language a person speaks, or the
language they teach their children?
29

30. How should we respond?
0 “Let them die in 0 “it is most urgent to
peace.”11 document languages
before they disappear”7
0 “It is paternalistic of
0 “our global village must
linguists to assume that
be truly multicultural
they know what is best and multilingual, or it
for the community.”8 will not exist at all.”14
0 “Patwa is keeping back 0 “Language death is a
the children.”15 terrible loss, to all who
come into contact with
it”5
30

31. Subjectivity and Language
0 Question: Is the value of language objective or
subjective? (Note: subjective ≠ arbitrary)
0 Question: Are languages mutually exclusive? Are they
even in direct competition?
31

32. Conclusion
0 Language endangerment is complicated.
0 (Sorry if you were hoping for a straightforward
conclusion.)
0 Overly simplistic representations don’t give us the
insights we need to actually address the issue.
0 A great deal more research needs to be done in
understanding the precise causes of language shift, so
that communities can best address this phenomenon
in the way that is most appropriate for them.
32

33. Contact Information
Daniel W. Hieber
Rosetta Stone
dhieber@rosettastone.com
Slides and other presentations available on website:
www.danielhieber.com
33

34. Further Reading
0 EndangeredLanguages.com
0 Dying Words by Nicholas Evans
0 When Languages Die by K. David Harrison
0 ‘Why do languages die?’ by Daniel W. Hieber
34

35. Sources
1. Boynton, Jessica. 2011. The cost of language mobilisation. SSILA Summer Meeting, Boulder, CO.
2. Crystal, David. 2000. Language Death. Cambridge University Press.
3. Endangered Languages. 2012. The Linguist List at Eastern Michigan University and The University of
Hawaii at Manoa. http://www.endangeredlanguages.com
4. Evans, Nicholas. 2010. Dying Words: Endangered Languages and What They Have to Tell Us. Wiley-
Blackwell.
5. Grenoble, Lenore A. 2011. Language ecology and endangerment. In Peter K. Austin & Julia Sallabank
(eds.), The Cambridge Handbook of Endangered Languages. 27-45. Cambridge University Press.
6. Haugen, Einar. 1972. The Ecology of Language: Essays by Einar Haugen. Stanford University Press.
7. Krauss, Michael E. 1992. The world’s languages in crisis. Language 68(1): 4-10.
8. Ladefoged, Peter. 1992. Another view of endangered languages. Language 68(4): 809-811.
9. Lee, R. B. & I. DeVore (eds.). 1968. Man the Hunter. Aldine.
10. Lewis, M. Paul (ed.), 2009. Ethnologue: Languages of the World, 16th edn. SIL International. Online
version: http://www.ethnologue.com
11. Malik, Kenan. 2000. Let them die. Prospect, November. Online version:
http://www.kenanmalik.com/essays/die.html
12. Moseley, Christopher (ed.). 2010. Atlas of the World’s Languages in Danger, 3rd edn. UNESCO. Online
version: http://www.unesco.org/culture/languages-atlas/en/atlasmap.html
13. Mufwene, Salikoko S. 2001. The Ecology of Language Evolution (Cambridge Approaches to Language
Contact). Cambridge University Press.
14. Nettle, Daniel & Suzanne Romaine. 2000. Vanishing Voices: The Extinction of the World’s Languages.
Oxford University Press.
15. Paugh, Amy L. 2012. Playing with Languages: Children and Change in a Caribbean Village. Berghahn
Books.
16. Sutherland, William J. 2003. Parallel extinction risk and global distribution of languages and species.
Nature 423: 276-9.
35