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Peter K Austin's top 10 endangered languages

The linguistics professor and author shares a personal selection

from the thousands of languages on the brink of disappearing *

Wednesday August 27 2008

Peter K Austin has published 11 books on minority and endangered

languages, including 12 Australian Aboriginal languages, and

holds the Märit Rausing Chair in field linguistics at the School

of Oriental and African Studies where he is also director of the

Endangered Languages Academic Programme. His most recent book is

1000 Languages: The Worldwide History of Living and Lost Tongues,

which explores the state of languages around the world.

There are more than 6,900 languages used around the world today,

ranging in size from those with hundreds of millions of speakers

to those with only one or two. Language experts now estimate that

as many as half of the existing languages are endangered, and by

the year 2050 they will be extinct. The major reason for this

language loss is that communities are switching to larger

politically and economically more powerful languages, like

English, Spanish, Hindi or Swahili.

Each language expresses the history, culture, society and

identity of the people who speak it, and each is a unique way of

talking about the world. The loss of any language is a loss to

both the community who use it in their daily lives, and to

humankind in general. The songs, stories, words, expressions and

grammatical structures of languages developed over countless

generations are part of the intangible heritage of all humanity.

So how to choose a top 10 from more than 3,000 endangered

languages? My selection is a personal one that tries to take into

account four factors: (1) geographical coverage - if possible I

wanted at least one language from each continent; (2) scientific

interest - I wanted to include languages that linguists find

interesting and important, because of their structural or

historical significance; (3) cultural interest - if possible some

information about interesting cultural and political aspects of

endangered languages should be included; and (4) social impact -

I wanted to include one or more situations showing why languages

are endangered, as well as highlighting some of the ways

communities are responding to the threat they currently face.

1. Jeru

Jeru (or Great Andamanese) is spoken by fewer than 20 people on

the Andaman Islands in the Indian Ocean. It is generally believed

that Andamanese languages might be the last surviving languages

whose history goes back to pre-Neolithic times in Southeast Asia

and possibly the first settlement of the region by modern humans

moving out of Africa. The languages of the Andamans cannot be

shown to be related to any other languages spoken on earth.

2. N|u (also called Khomani)

This is a Khoisan language spoken by fewer than 10 elderly people

whose traditional lands are located in the Kalahari Gemsbok

National Park in South Africa. The Khoisan languages are

remarkable for having click sounds ? the | symbol is pronounced

like the English interjection tsk! tsk! used to express pity or

shame.The closest relative of N|u is !Xóõ (also called Ta'a and

spoken by about 4,000 people) which has the most sounds of any

language on earth: 74 consonants, 31 vowels, and four tones

(voice pitches).

3. Ainu

The Ainu language is spoken by a small number of old people on

the island of Hokkaido in the far north of Japan. They are the

original inhabitants of Japan, but were not recognised as a

minority group by the Japanese government until this year. The

language has very complicated verbs that incorporate a whole

sentence's worth of meanings, and it is the vehicle of an

extensive oral literature of folk stories and songs. Moves are

underway to revive Ainu language and cultural practices.

4. Thao

Sun Moon Lake of central Taiwan is the home of the Thao language,

now spoken by a handful of old people while the remainder of the

community speaks Taiwanese Chinese (Minnan). Thao is an

Austronesian language related to languages spoken in the

Philippines, Indonesia and the Pacific, and represents one of the

original communities of the Austronesians before they sailed

south and east over 3,000 years ago.

5. Yuchi

Yuchi is spoken in Oklahoma, USA, by just five people all aged

over 75. Yuchi is an isolate language (that is, it cannot be

shown to be related to any other language spoken on earth). Their

own name for themselves is Tsoyaha, meaning "Children of the

Sun". Yuchi nouns have 10 genders, indicated by word endings: six

for Yuchi people (depending on kinship relations to the person

speaking), one for non-Yuchis and animals, and three for

inanimate objects (horizontal, vertical, and round). Efforts are

now under way to document the language with sound and video

recordings, and to revitalise it by teaching it to children.

6. Oro Win

The Oro Win live in western Rondonia State, Brazil, and were

first contacted by outsiders in 1963 on the headwaters of the

Pacaas Novos River. The group was almost exterminated after two

attacks by outsiders and today numbers just 50 people, only five

of whom still speak the language. Oro Win is one of only five

languages known to make regular use of a sound that linguists

call "a voiceless dental bilabially trilled affricate". In rather

plainer language, this means it's produced with the tip of the

tongue placed between the lips which are then vibrated (in a

similar way to the brrr sound we make in English to signal that

the weather is cold).

7. Kusunda

The Kusunda are a former group of hunter-gatherers from western

Nepal who have intermarried with their settled neighbours. Until

recently it was thought that the language was extinct but in 2004

scholars at Tribhuvan University in Kathmandu located eight

people who still speak the language. Another isolate, with no

connections to other languages.

8. Ter Sami

This is the easternmost of the Saami group of languages (formerly

called Lapp, a derogatory term), located on the Kola Peninsula in

Russia. It is spoken by just 10 elderly people among

approximately 100 ethnic Ter Sami who all now speak Russian as

their daily language. Ter Sami is related to Finnish and other

Uralic languages spoken in Russia and Siberia, and distantly to

Hungarian.

9. Guugu Yimidhirr

Guugu Yimidhirr is an Australian Aboriginal language spoken at

Hopevale near Cooktown in northern Queensland by around 200

people. A wordlist was collected by Captain James Cook in 1770

and it has given English (and the rest of the world's languages)

the word kangaroo. Guugu Yimidhirr (like some other Aboriginal

languages) is remarkable for having a special way of speaking to

certain family members (like a man's father-in-law or

brother-in-law) in which everyday words are replaced by

completely different special vocabulary. For example, instead of

saying bama dhaday for "the man is going" you must say yambaal

bali when speaking to these relatives as a mark of respect and

politeness.

10. Ket

Ket is the last surviving member of a family of languages spoken

along the Yenesei River in eastern Siberia. Today there are

around 600 speakers but no children are learning it since parents

Prefer to speak to them in Russian. Ket is the only Siberian

language with a tone system where the pitch of the voice can give

what sound like identical words quite different meanings. (Much

like Chinese or Yoruba). To add to the difficulty for any

westerner wishing to learn it, it also has extremely complicated

word structure and grammar.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2008/aug/27/endangered.languages

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endangered_languages

Wikipedia's page on endangered languages.

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