National Geographic recently published a study about language death and disappearance. Every 14 days a language dies, and by 2100, more than 3,500 languages will disappear from the face of the earth. Most of these languages will remain undiscovered, taking with them a great source of knowledge about different cultures, traditions, ways of thinking and history. Among all other global crises such as climate change or economical depression, language death is also alarming. With the death of each language, we become more unable to bridge the gap between different languages and ways of thinking associated with them. We are losing our diversity.
Included in the research, there is also a map of language hotspots, areas with many languages under the threat of extinction. It is interesting to see that nearly every region in the world is a language hotspot - only except Europe. Why is Europe not plagued by language death? Is it the European invasion and imperial politics of old European powers?
Another article that I have read, although it is not about language death, made me pose more questions about this topic. "Present imperfect: Is the human brain ill adapted for language?" by Katherine Harmon mentions an argument by Gary Marcus, a psychologist in New York University, that human brain still needs to evolve in order to be able to use languages effectively. The human brain is a context-driven memory, and some psychologists argue that in order for the brain to use a language as efficiently as possible, there should be a "logical language," one based on mathematical and logic models. Such a language was created in the 1960s, but it failed since people had a difficult time with learning it.
I can see why this artificial language failed to succeed. Languages are human creations, and they are created out of need - in order to describe emotions, to communicate thoughts, to talk. The creation process is not perfectly systematic, but that is how human brain chose to communicate its ideas with others. Is it really possible to create an artificial language without taking the way of human thinking, expression and psychology? Is a language a set of grammatical rules or a product of human thinking? I believe that since language is an innately natural creation, an artificial language that is systematized may not be the best one to match the natural need of humans. Language is more than a set of grammatical rules and list of conjugations. At a time when we are losing our naturally created languages so rapidly, it is not surprising to lose an artificial one.
Links: http://www.scientificamerican.com/blog/post.cfm?id=present-imperfect-is-the-human-brai-2010-04-07
http://www.nationalgeographic.com/mission/enduringvoices/
(Both are very interesting articles - I highly recommend reading them.)
Link to map: http://resources.lsaweb.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/language-hotspots-map.jpg
That is interesting that there was an effort to create a language based off of what seems to me solely conventions of grammar and syntax. I'm just wondering what Gary Marcus means by using languages "effectively." Do you think there was anything to achieve in implementing a logical language? I agree with you that language cannot just be considered as a logical system because so much more goes into the languages that we speak that is not measurable. People use language to express emotion and I feel that using this logical language excludes aspects such as that.
ReplyDeleteThe artificial language and it's failure is very intersting. I wonder how they created such a language, I'm really interested in seeing what the language was like. Maybe I'll look into it and get back to you!
ReplyDeleteBut I agree with what you said, that language is a natural creation that matches our human needs of communication. Language, in my opinion, has the job of helping us express ourselves, our emotions and our needs to others and creating an artificial language out of mathematics and systems does not help us in that means. Grammar and rules help organize the language but does not "rule the language."
It is very sad that we are losing so many languages and dialects recently. But I wonder if there is anything that we can do to prevent this from happening. The domination of certain languages is a very natural process because people want to learn a language that has power.