defining and measuring language endangerment
While there is no definite threshold for identifying a language as endangered, three main criteria are used as guidelines:
Asserting that "Language diversity is essential to the human heritage," UNESCO's Ad Hoc Expert Group on Endangered Languages offers this definition of an endangered language: "... when its speakers cease to use it, use it in an increasingly reduced number of communicative domains, and cease to pass it on from one generation to the next. That is, there are no new speakers, adults or children."
UNESCO's Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger categorises 2,473 languages into five levels of endangerment: unsafe, definitely endangered, severely endangered, critically endangered and extinct. More than 200 languages have become extinct around the world over the last three generations.
UNESCO distinguishes four levels of endangerment in languages, based on inter-generational transfer:
Vulnerable: Most children speak the language, but it may be restricted to certain domains (e.g., home). Definitely endangered: Children no longer learn the language as mother tongue in the home. Severely endangered: Language is spoken by grandparents and older generations; while the parent generation may understand it, they do not speak it to children or among themselves. Critically endangered: The youngest speakers are grandparents and older, and they speak the language partially and infrequently. Many scholars have devised techniques for determining whether languages are endangered. One of the earliest is GIDS (Graded Intergenerational Disruption Scale) proposed by Joshua Fishman in 1991. In 2011 an entire issue of Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development devoted to the study of ethno-linguistic vitality, Vol. 32.2, 2011, with several authors presenting their own tools for measuring language vitality. A number of other published works on measuring language vitality have been published, prepared by authors with varying situations and applications in mind
- The number and age of current speakers.
- Whether the youngest generations are acquiring fluency in the language.
Asserting that "Language diversity is essential to the human heritage," UNESCO's Ad Hoc Expert Group on Endangered Languages offers this definition of an endangered language: "... when its speakers cease to use it, use it in an increasingly reduced number of communicative domains, and cease to pass it on from one generation to the next. That is, there are no new speakers, adults or children."
UNESCO's Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger categorises 2,473 languages into five levels of endangerment: unsafe, definitely endangered, severely endangered, critically endangered and extinct. More than 200 languages have become extinct around the world over the last three generations.
UNESCO distinguishes four levels of endangerment in languages, based on inter-generational transfer:
Vulnerable: Most children speak the language, but it may be restricted to certain domains (e.g., home). Definitely endangered: Children no longer learn the language as mother tongue in the home. Severely endangered: Language is spoken by grandparents and older generations; while the parent generation may understand it, they do not speak it to children or among themselves. Critically endangered: The youngest speakers are grandparents and older, and they speak the language partially and infrequently. Many scholars have devised techniques for determining whether languages are endangered. One of the earliest is GIDS (Graded Intergenerational Disruption Scale) proposed by Joshua Fishman in 1991. In 2011 an entire issue of Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development devoted to the study of ethno-linguistic vitality, Vol. 32.2, 2011, with several authors presenting their own tools for measuring language vitality. A number of other published works on measuring language vitality have been published, prepared by authors with varying situations and applications in mind
causes of language endangerment:
According to the Cambridge Handbook of Endangered Languages, there are four main types of causes of language endangerment.
There are those causes that put the populations that speak the languages in physical danger, such as:
In addition, cultural hegemony may often arise not from domination or conquest but simply from increasing contact with a larger and more influential language community through better communications compared with the relative isolation of past centuries.
There are those causes that put the populations that speak the languages in physical danger, such as:
- Natural disasters, famine, disease. An example of this is the languages spoken by the people of the Andaman Islands, who were seriously affected by the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami.
- War and genocide. Examples of this are the language(s) of the indigenous population of Tasmania who were wiped out by colonists, and many extinct and endangered languages of the Americas where indigenous peoples have been subjected to genocidal violence, or in the cases of the Miskito language in Nicaragua and the Mayan languages of Guatemala have been affected by civil war.
- Political repression. This has frequently happened when nation-states working to promote a single national culture limit the opportunities for using minority languages in the public sphere, schools, the media, and elsewhere, sometimes even prohibiting them altogether. Sometimes ethnic groups are forcibly resettled, or children may be removed to be schooled away from home, or otherwise have their chances of cultural and linguistic continuity disrupted. This has happened in the case of many Native American and Australian languages, as well as European and Asian minority languages such as Breton or Alsatian in France and Kurdish in Turkey.
- Cultural/political/economic marginalization/hegemony. This happens when political and economical power is closely tied to a particular language and culture so that there is a strong incentive for individuals to abandon their language (on behalf of themselves and their children) in favor of another more prestigious one. This frequently happens when indigenous populations, in order to achieve a higher social status, adopt the cultural and linguistic traits of a people who have come to dominate them through colonization, conquest, or invasion; examples of this kind of endangerment are the Welsh language in Great Britain, and Ainu in Japan. This is the most common cause of language endangerment.
In addition, cultural hegemony may often arise not from domination or conquest but simply from increasing contact with a larger and more influential language community through better communications compared with the relative isolation of past centuries.