Language Death and Revitalization
Abstract
Language death and revitalization has been experienced several times in our communities. Most languages have lost their latter native speakers resulting in language death. During the process of language death, society’s linguistic competence in a community in language variety is likely to reduce. There leads to lack of intuitive fluent speakers of that particular language variety. However, language death can adversely affect the language system, especially linguistic dialects. Research shows that in the current world, there is an increment in language death resulting in the abandonment of the native language and increased rates of language shifts. This is a result of cultural assimilation, which has influenced the native speakers to use foreign languages, mainly European foreign languages. Due to the increase in concerns about language death, language revitalization was used to revive the death language (Laura, 2016, p. 43). This process involves a lot of people for its success. The cultural groups, the government officials, and the linguists are responsible for language revitalization. This research is essential in evaluating questions regarding language death and revival. However, the main research question of this report is to assess and determine whether a death language can be revived, especially from the foreign languages dominant in various states. The research also examines the causes and the impacts of language death in societies today. The research paper uses multiple methods like surveying and interviewing for the success of this research. The methods will enhance the researcher to obtain adequate information that will be used to address the issue regarding language death.
Introduction
Many years ago, there has been a widespread language death and revitalization in different communities. Language death is brought up as a result of the cultural assimilation of innate speakers. These speakers are prone to use foreign European languages, thus promoting their language death. This is likely to reduce the language variety of a specific language in this social, linguistic competence culture. Language death can significantly affect the language structure, thus influencing most speakers to abandon it (Sasse, 1992, p. 14). Research shows that by the year 2000, there have been more than 7000 native spoken languages across the world. The minor languages are the most affected languages from this challenge. The 2014 study further explains that there more than 90% of the spoken words in the current world will be death by 2050. This is a result of the over-reliance on foreign culture and languages leading to the abandonment of our native culture. This threat calls for attention from the researchers, the intellectuals, and the linguistics to look for an effective way of preventing this language death in our societies today.
Language revitalization has been the primary method used to revive this threat of language death (Hinton, 2003, p. 48). The language cultural groups, the linguistics, and the government officials have been in the front gear for the success of this fight. However, some studies show that over the past years, the Hebrew language is the only language that has successfully and wholly been revived from language death. This led to the creation of new native speakers’ generation. The pre-existing native speakers had become entirely extinct in the communities. Language revitalization is the reliable method used to ensure that there is an increase in the use of the native language and that the number of speakers is growing. This revitalization comprises various strategies that promote the use of natural language hence preventing language deaths in our societies. This process is crucial since it helps in preserving and maintaining language diversity in the current world and in the coming days. The efforts for the language revival are made to rescue the death languages, which are the essential tools in various community cultures (Ahearn, 2016, 63). The native language is crucial in evaluating the self-image of individuals and the history in various communities. The linguistics is the core characters in the fight against language death. They make and keep data records regarding the vocabulary, grammar, and the powerful features of a particular native language. All these strategies encourage the motivators to intuitive speakers globally. The use of questionnaires and sampling was the primary method used to gather information from the people regarding language deaths and revitalization. After the collection of data and analysis of the data, it was evident that the death languages can be rescued through the language revival process.
Literature Review
Language death is always caused as a result of the changes in a particular language. The shift can majorly lead to language attrition, physical or biological language death, gradual language death, radical language death, bottom-to-top language death, and top-to-bottom language death. In these cases, the leading action to these forms of language death is the attempt of the speakers from one native language attempting to be bilingual language speakers. In this process, these speakers are likely to have more loyalty to the second foreign language rather than their original native language. This action may be either voluntary or forced among the people in our communities. Research shows that most of these speakers tend to leave their native language due to some prejudices about both the foreign and their native minority languages (Dressier, 1988, p. 184). Most of them presume that foreign languages have more prestige and value as compared to their native languages. Besides, these natural minority languages can be easily affected by a disease, massacre, or natural calamity. This is due to the vast isolation of the language by its innate speakers. These factors are responsible for increasing the language death rates in various communities across the world.
Moreover, the language undergoes a lot of variations as the speakers tend to change it as much as they can to get used to the languages they prefer. This involves the dropping and the replacement of some words from the native languages. Even though this process seems to be mutually elite, it has dramatically affected the grammar in both the native and foreign languages. This is as a result of factors such as under-generalization, overgeneralization, the change in the word form and order, morphological loss, loss of word-formation productivity, and increased variability. This affects the effectiveness of grammar in various communities (Brenzinger, 1992, p. 4).
However, from the research, it is clear that the death language can be revived from the language revitalization process. This process is ongoing and is applied to various languages, although the success of the process varies from one language to another. The research also shows that the Hebrew language revival has been the only successful revitalization over the past centuries (Laura, 2016, p. 73). The language had vanished before as its most native speakers preferred the liturgical language. Also, some languages such as Cherokee, Irish, Navajo, Hawaiian, and Welsh have shown some extent of success to language revitalization.
Additionally, some of the organizations and researchers have explored effective ways of preventing language death. They collect and gather up-to-date data about endangered languages and give more research about them. The availability of a prevailing culture that promotes linguistic diversity can help to prevent language death (Spolsky, 2004, p. 94). The organizations also educate the mass on the endangered language and the importance of language preservation. They have also initiated the school programs for native speakers to learn more about the bio culture and bilingual. The people from the endangered language communities should be involved in the initiatives preventing the language of death.
Methodology
During my research process, sampling was used to obtain a wide range of data about language death and revitalization from various people (Ahearn, 2016, p. 74). The samples were issued to various people in different parts of the country. Different people gave out different views and ideas regarding their knowledge about language death and revival. The individuals involved in the sampling process were randomly picked from different groups in the various communities. Most of them witnessed that they had experienced language death in their societies, and it was of significant impact on the people. This method is useful to be used since it resulted in obtaining information that was variable, leading to the practical analysis of the data regarding language death and revitalization across the world.
Surveys were also used to conduct this research. The polls used consisted of both open-ended questions and close-ended inquiries. The surveys were distributed among different people in various communities. The people were guided on how to fill the polls to ensure that the research obtains the reliable information used for findings. This method was valid because the researcher would get first-hand information from the government officials, the individuals from the community groups, and the linguistics. This provided room for obtaining information from a reliable source, analyzing the information with the linguistics, and evaluating a conclusion regarding language death and revitalization in communities. From the methods used in the research, the hypothesis of the study is fully covered and proved.
Results and Conclusion
From the research conducted, language death and revitalization is prevailing in different communities across the globe. Cultural assimilation is the primary cause of language death since native speakers presume that foreign languages, especially the European languages, are more fashionable than their native languages. This assimilation has led to the reduced language variety of the native and the endangered languages in the societies. Language death has caused variations in language structures leading to many grammatical errors. However, language revitalization has been the dominant method used to revive this threat of language death. The language cultural groups, the linguistics, and the government officials have been in the front line in preventing the language death in the communities.
Conversely, some studies show that the Hebrew language is the only language that has wholly and successfully been revived from language death over the past years. Language revitalization is an effective method that has significantly led to an increase in the use of the native language and that the number of speakers is growing. This revitalization helps in preserving and maintaining language diversity in the current world and in the coming days. The linguistics are the main characters in the fight against language death, thus promoting the culture in our societies.
References
Ahearn, Laura M. Living language: An introduction to linguistic anthropology. John Wiley & Sons, 2016.
Brenzinger, Matthias, and Gerrit J. Dimmendaal. “Social contexts of language death.” Language death: factual and theoretical explorations with special reference to East Africa (1992): 3-5.
Hinton, Leanne. “3. Language revitalization.” Annual Review of Applied Linguistics 23 (2003): 44-57.
Sasse, Hans-Jürgen. “Theory of language death.” Language death: Factual and theoretical explorations with special reference to East Africa (1992): 7-30.
Spolsky, Bernard. Language policy. Cambridge University Press, 2004.