Types of Language Death
Types of Language Death
It is, of course, possible for an already-dying language to suddenly become extinct, so that this
type of death is not necessarily mutually exclusive with other types, but it is also possible for
sudden language death to affect a monolingual group of speakers.
Radical language death occurred for several Native American languages in El Salvador after an
Indian uprising in the 1930s. Those thought to be Indian by appearance, including language
use, were rounded up and killed in wanton acts of genocide.
The most common type of language death is the case of language loss due to “the gradual
shift to the dominant language in a contact situation”. In such cases, there is often a continuum
of language proficiency that correlates with different generations of speakers.
For example, fewer younger speakers use the dying language variety and with less proficiency
in more restricted contexts than their older cohorts within the community; speakers who do not
have a full range of functional or structural competency in the language have often been labeled
semi-speakers though the label obviously covers a wide range of proficiency levels.
In the case of bottom-to-top language death, the language loss takes place in everyday
conversation and casual settings while the language is retained in more formal, ritualistic
contexts. This contraction follows the Latinate pattern where the language was used in formal
ecclesiastical contexts long after it died in everyday conversation.
Causes of Language Death
Ethical reasons
Language is a vehicle for expressing values, ideas and experience. Your mother tongue
defines who you are, and where you are from in contrast with, and in relation to, others.
Aesthetic motivations
To quote Ken Hale, a well-known linguist, who worked with several threatened languages and
noticed the impact of loss of language: „When you lose a language, you lose a culture,
intellectual wealth, work of art. It is like dropping a bomb on a museum, the Louvre.‟
Economic justifications
In regard to economic justifications, language revival has a number of utilitarian benefits. To
begin with, it aims to provide the speakers involved with the opportunities to improve their
wellbeing and mental health.
Cognitive benefits
Language revival has a number of cognitive benefits related to multilingualism. It is generally
agreed that bilingual individuals have demonstrated to have better cognitive processes, such
as mental flexibility, problem solving, task switching and inhibitory control,
compared to monolingual individuals.
METHODS FOR LANGUAGE REVIVAL
Total-immersion method
In terms of language revitalisation, total-immersion method can be defined as exposing
learners to only hear and speak the endangered
language. The threatened language is used as a main vehicle for content instruction. The total
immersion method provides learners with the opportunity to use language in real communication
that assist in producing fluency.
Language revival is different from language reclamation because language revival relies on
native speakers as consultants while language reclamation is based on documentation of the
language.
Government support
Government support plays a leading role in enhancing the likelihood of success of language
revival activities. It can be provided in different ways such as recognition of people‟s language
and culture, and this can be done through encouraging the use of minority languages in
government offices, schools and mass media.