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107REASONS FOR LANGUAGE LOSS AND CONSEQUENCES OF IT
© Borisova M.V.*
Institute of Foreign Philology and Regional Studies North-Eastern Federal University, Yakutsk
The article describes main reasons for language loss and its consequences. Firstly, author provides the reader with four gradual steps of language loss. Further author gives main reasons for language loss and distinguishes a group of consequences which consist in loss of communicative skills and understanding, loss of traditional knowledge, loss of identity.
Key words: language loss, identity, culture, traditional knowledge.
Introduction to language loss
Language is the way how we see the world and organize it around us. ‘It is also central to how we create and reinforce our view of ourselves and others’ [Mooney, 2011: 173]. Suzanne LaBelle writes that ‘we all behave differently in our various social roles; we have identities as friends, as the children of our parents, as colleagues with our workmates [Mooney, 2011: 174]. It is not the only one thing that makes our roles. But imagine how colossal role language plays in our life. It is absolutely true that language and identity are interrelated. Then what will happen if language is lost? In order to answer the questions firstly we should state what language loss is.
I stick to the definition of language loss as inability to communicate with people of the same ethnicity in one’s own native language. I can also add the fact that it usually disappears due to number of changes in the ethnic community. It is better explained by Willem Fase, Koen Jaspaert and Sjaak Kroon:
In its simplest form loss occurs when that minority group member cannot do the things with the minority language he used to be able to do. He used to be able to discuss soccer with his friends, or give lecture on a scientific subject, or read newspaper without the aid of a dictionary, and now he encounters difficulty doing these things. Some of the proficiency he used to have is no longer accessible [Fase, Jaspaert, Kroon 1992: 8].
Nowadays every minority nation which is going through the process of globalization has a threat of losing their language and culture under the pressure of ‘bigger’ society. During the past century hundreds of languages disappeared or ‘died’ or are on the point of being lost because they have lost their speakers. The facts prove it. ‘An estimated 6800 languages are spoken in the world today. By the end of this century, as many as 90 percent of these languages will have disappeared entirely’ [Austin, 2008: 216].
Ассистент кафедры Английской филологии и регионоведения.
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As Danielle Nettle and Suzanne Romaine suggest language ‘can only exist where there is a community to speak and transmit it’ - and they are right - ‘where communities cannot thrive, their languages are in danger’ [Nettle, Romaine, 2000: 5]. Usually languages do not die their natural deaths, they are forced to die or even murdered. That is always difficult for ‘smaller’ language to compete with ‘bigger’ one - widely used languages. What I would like to discuss further in our paper are main reasons for language loss. But firstly I would like to distinguish steps of language loss process.
1. Language loss: main steps
It is difficult to find out the exact period of language loss. Moreover there are several ways of losing one’s language two of which are: when it is totally forgotten; when it is not used but it is remembered and understood. As Daniel Nettle and Suzanne Romaine write ‘“remembers” may survive the active use of a language by several generations. In some cases such people may recall things from a language they never fully learned or used’ [Nettle, Romaine, 2000: 52]. What I want to discuss in this sections are the steps of losing language. Of course, it is only a rough scheme which is preserved to be right.
1.1. First generation.
First generation is a group of people who has their own ethnicity and language. Their minority language is a language of everyday life: they use it in every single situation - in the shops, at work, on the meetings, with friends, etc.; their children are taught this language at schools and kinder gardens. People of first generation are free to use their native language.
Then they meet other people who speak language of dominant nation. If people of first generation are immigrants they would probably take great pains in order to learn new language and assimilate. If not, they will still try to learn new language but with lesser desire.
On having learnt new language they would still have an accent, do grammatical and lexical mistakes. As a result they become an object of constant laughter from the side of people of dominant nation as well as their own children. This results in formation of concept in mind of minority nation that their language is rather a defect which should be liquidated. Children are made to learn speaking language of dominant nation.
1.2. Second generation.
Usually people of second nation are bilingual. They use their native language at home with parents and relatives, but at school and other public places they use the language of dominant nation. It means they understand both language and have good communicative skills in both languages. The situation seems perfect but there is a great blank space in knowledge of grammar of native language.
1.3. Third generation.
The speakers of this generation can be either bilinguals or master the language of dominant nation. According to research of Muradova A.R. they are
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called ‘terminal speakers’ [Muradova, 2008: 72]. It is a generation which loses their native language. Usually they know some words from their grandparents or people who live in the villages and far situated places where their native language is still preserved. They use several words and phrases in everyday life. But the basic concept of their native language - I mean most part of traditional knowledge - remains unknown for them and even alien.
1.4. Fourth generation.
The representatives of four generation totally lose their language. Still they know several words and phrases but there is no connection between them and people who still speak in their native language. On this point representatives of fourth generation understand that they have lost something of great importance. They try to revitalize the language of their ancestors by learning it, taking native language courses.
Language loss seems to appear fast. From the information above one could distinguish at least one reason for language loss and it is immigration. But actually there are more reasons which I will go through in Section 2.
2. Language loss: reasons
The formation of one nation goes hand in hand with the formation of own language. Language loss is so huge process that cannot be understood fully. It can be compared with a man having a right hand: he is so up to it so when he loses it he loses the ability to do the things he had done before with this hand, he loses the ability to live the life he had lived before. What is happening with languages? Causes of language loss vary. Peter K. Austin mentions ‘several overarching factors’: ‘urbanization, globalization, and social and cultural dislocation’ [Austin, 2008: 217]. Let us discuss the reasons in detail and start with ‘slower’ ones. By ‘slower’ I mean the ones which do not seem to cause much damage; the processes which take some time when implanting their ‘products’ into the language.
2.1. Globalization.
Globalization is a huge process which cannot be reversed or stopped. English can be called a phenomenon of globalization. It is now the most widely used language in the world, ‘although only 400 years ago it was hardly known outside its home in the British Isles, with approximately 7 million speakers, or about 1.5 percent of the world population at that time’ [Austin 2008: 16]. Almost in all languages of the world you will find English words which ‘assimilated’ in languages and became parts of it. For example, in Russian there are a lot of English words which cannot be called in any other way than English: плейер ‘player’, кроссворд ‘crossword’, киллер ‘killer’, хит ‘hit’, пирсинг ‘piercing’, файл ‘file’, etc. The spread of foreign words decreases the frequency of use of our own languages. Now we do not have words for ‘globalization phenomena’, tomorrow we will not have words for everyday life, and then we will not use our native languages at all. The fact that ‘by 1897... [English] was being used across a quarter of the world’s surface’ only proves it [Austin, 2008: 17].
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2.2. Urbanization.
Second reason is urbanization. Nowadays there is a tendency for young generation who live in small villages or towns go / move to big cities where they can find better opportunities in education, career progress, where they can find suitable jobs, goods and services which cannot be found in small towns and villages. But the thing is that in big cities people tend to speak language of dominant nation. This situation makes young people speak language of dominant nation which leads to decrease of use of native language and to even greater consequences which I will mention later.
2.3. Invasion.
Third reason occurs when the area of minority nation is invaded by more powerful nation. This reason is one of ‘old-fashioned ones’; I mean it appeared more often in old days.
Conqueror claims its right to the land, resources and language. Winner states his own language as main, of course. In order to succeed in new society one has to learn language of dominant nation. This situation is explained in the book of Willem Fase, Koen Jaspaert and Sjaak Kroon. They write that ‘being confronted with another dominant language probably’ led to language loss as those ‘speakers ... only speak that language’ [Fase, Koen, Sjaak, 1992: 4]. So people have only two choices: not to communicate with people of another nation or learn new language and lose their own. As a result native language is counted ‘uplandish’ and is preserved in little villages and location situated far from administrative centre. As example of this situation can be taken Ubykh language. Peter K. Austin writes that Ubykh language was spoken in the Black Sea coast. During the Russian invasion of Circissia 50 000 Ubykh speakers died. The last man who knew Ubykh was Tevtiq Esenc who died in 1992 and the language that he used died with him [Austin, 2008: 242].
Another example is language situation in Southern Africa. It is written that there were a lot of cultures and peoples living in Southern Africa, such as: Zulu, Xhosa, Ndebele, Tswana, Pedi, Venda, Sotho, San, Tsonga, Afrikaners, and Sho-na. But due to the colonization in the nineteenth century large amount of these languages was lost. Peter K. Austin writes:
The Indigenous people here most probably originally spoke Khoisan.Many Khoisan languages have already become extinct, and those that are still spoken are either seriously endangered, or on the verge of extinction [Austin, 2008: 222-223].
It is obvious that contact with another language when one replaces the other has destructive consequences for language of minority. ‘Speakers abandon the language of their parents in favor of another language’ [Austin, 2008: 216].
2.4. Migration.
In dispersive sheltering immigrants ought to learn the language of the country where they have arrived. Otherwise it becomes impossible task to live and assimilate in the new society. In this case suppression of the language of immi-
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grants by dominant language is even quicker process. The language loss occurs in a few decades.
Imagine ... a group that migrated to an area in which another language is dominant, and that stops using its own language in a period of three generations [Fase, Jaspaert, Kroon, 1992: 4].
Lily Wong Fillmore writes that ‘accelerated language loss is common occurrence these days among immigrant families’ [Fillmore, 2000: 205]. In her article she describes Chinese family who immigrated to the United States. The adults (parents, uncle and grandmother) saved their native language because of working in the same ethnical community though they didn’t succeed in learning English. On the contrary, their elder children (Chu-mei and Kai-fong) learned English greatly while almost losing their language. They do not have natural fluency in Cantonese now and know only several phrases. Their younger children (Chu-wa and Allison) cannot say anything in Cantonese [Fillmore, 2000: 205].
The difference between two reasons represented above is that invaders’ case can be characterized by sharp decrease of number of speakers of minority language. That occurs in case of harsh social changes, such as revolutions, mass exodus of people into the cities, appearance of radio- and TV-sets in language of dominant nation.
Peter K. Austin writes ‘given enough time, perhaps most (if not all) languages that we know will, like the majority, become extinct’ [Austin, 2008: 239]. We do not know whether the processes of urbanization and globalization can be turned back and all the languages could be saved or revitalized. But the fact that these processes are going is to be admitted as well as the consequences of language loss.
3. Language loss: consequences
The consequences of language loss may be larger than expected. It is written that ‘language is a marker of ethnicity’ [Mooney 2011: 127]. I think that language goes even wider out of the frames of this definition; it is [a marker of] who you are. What I will discuss further in our paper are the consequences of language loss.
3.1. Loss of communicative skills and understanding
I think language loss, firstly, influences one’s communicative skills. Without knowing the words and phrases of your native language, being unaware of grammar and lexis, person cannot communicate with other people of the same ethnical community. As you know when you meet somebody of the same ethnicity you are trying to talk in native language. The fact that person cannot communicate in native language always brings people of the same ethnicity in frustration and annoyance. But person who cannot speak still refers himself to his native ethnical community.
Loss of understanding is much worse than loss of communicative skills. It leads directly to language loss. When one cannot understand person of the same
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ethnicity he does not really think they belong to one community. They cannot understand each other not only on the level of communication but on the level of mentality. If these consequences may be presumed ‘smaller’ ones the next consequence is very important and dangerous.
3.2. Loss of traditional knowledge.
Speakers of minority languages have a great dependency on everyday routine. Being inhabitants of definite territorial area they are imposed special knowledge of the place. The knowledge which has been accumulated by ancestry and preserved from generation to generation is called ‘traditional knowledge’. This knowledge consists in working experience, survival techniques and methods, observations and etc. Nils Jernsletten writes that traditional knowledge is extremely usage-oriented and it makes people be able to use nature for sustenance. He says that ‘silent knowledge’ (that is how he calls traditional knowledge) is closely connected with individual’s experience [Jernsletten, 1997: 86].
As Nils Jernsletten I come to the conclusion that youngsters can only learn traditional knowledge by working with experienced person ‘through observing, experiencing, and through asking’ [Jernsletten, 1997: 87-88]. When there is nobody to be observed, when the language is lost - the language which consisted in sufficient knowledge of environment or world around us - it actually leads to huge irreversible consequences. Language loss leads to the loss of traditional knowledge which was carried and preserved from generation to generation. All observations connected with a man, nature, life and other important things are brushed out of one’s life.
3.3. Loss of identity.
Identity is the way one sees himself in the world, for example, as a part of particular social group, inhabitant of the land, etc. The roles can vary. One can have identities as a child to his parents, as a friend, as a teammate, etc. What is important for ‘playing’ these social roles is language. The way we speak, what language we speak is a marker for our roles in the world. If we lose the language we speak, the language which reflects our world we lose the sense of ourselves. ‘Who we are? What we are? How can we identify ourselves?’ - these are the questions to be asked. For people who lose their native language there is no place where he belongs to, there is no ‘homeland’. There are no people to talk with about something you can share in your own language. One should feel lonely in the crowd of people speaking another language. Tefvik Esenc was the only who knew Ubykh language fluently while only several tribesmen knew some phrases. ‘Even his own three sons were unable to converse with their father in his native language because they had become Turkish speakers’ [Nettle, Romaine, 2000: 2].
In the article ‘Aboriginal knowledge and youth suicide’ Darcy Hallett, Michael J. Chandler and Christopher E. Lalonde prove that ‘those bands with higher levels of language knowledge (i.e., more than 50 %) had fewer suicides than those bands with lower level [Hallett et al, 2007: 396]. It shows that by losing native language person loses the sense of life.
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Conclusion
Language is the way people get to know the external world which can be talked and thought about; it is a large means of self-identification, a container of rich detailed knowledge. Living in rapidly changing economic and cultural environment it is hard to preserve own language. As we found out loss of the language is a great tragedy which can only happen with native speakers. Language has a great influence on our life, our social roles, our behavior and even our way of thinking. When Daniel Nettle and Suzanne Romaine think that ‘when languages lose their speakers, they die’ [Nettle, Romaine, 2000: 5] I think that when people lose their language they can die too.
References:
1. Austin, P. (Ed.). (2008). One thousand languages: living, endangered, and lost. Univ of California Press.
2. Fase, W., Jaspaert, K., & Kroon, S. (Eds.). (1992). Maintenance and loss of minority languages (Vol. 1). John Benjamins Publishing.
3. Fillmore, L. W. (2000). Loss of family languages: Should educators be concerned?. Theory into practice, 39(4), 203-210.
4. Hallett, D., Chandler, M. J., & Lalonde, C. E. (2007). Aboriginal language knowledge and youth suicide. Cognitive Development, 22(3), 392-399.
5. Jernsletten, N. (1997). Sami traditional terminology: professional terms concerning salmon, reindeer and snow. Sami culture in a new era. The Norwegian Sami experience. Davvi Guji, Karasjok, 86-108.
6. Mooney, A., Peccei, J. S., LaBelle, S., Henriksen, B. E., Eppler, E., Irwin, A., Pichler, P., Preece, S., & Soden, S. (2011). Language, Society and Power: An Introduction. Taylor & Francis.
7. Muradova A.R. (2008). Kak ischezayut yaziki i kak ih vozrozhdayut. BBK 81.1 Ya43 Ya41, 70.
8. Nettle, D., & Romaine, S. (2000). The extinction of the world's languages. New York: Oxford University Press.
