Clearly, imperialism, white supremacy, and colonization of the past and the present are fully (rarely partially) responsible for the extinct or endangered status of many languages. At least within American history, white colonists subjugated Indigenous cultures and languages to justify the dehumanization and dissemination of these Indigenous populations. When a language becomes endangered or extinct, the world not only uses the grammatical structures and vocabulary of the language, but the world also loses the cultural nuisances and historical significance behind these structures and words. In other words, the historical, linguistic, and cultural identity of a population is almost completely wiped from the face of the earth. More importantly, as K. David Harrison says, “We don’t even know what we are losing”.
I recently listened to a podcast that reminded me of Johnson’s article and Molaro’s video. There is a great NPR Podcast called “Code Switch” that republished an episode on saving the language of Hawaii Natives. The hosts of the podcast visited the Big Island and toured the first Hawaiian-only school, founded in 1998. By Hawaiian-only, I mean that the students are taught in the Hawaiian language and only use English in specific English language classes. With the occupation of Hawaii by white Americans, the native population were frequently punished for speaking their first language, wearing traditional garb, and following their cultural traditions. This campaign against Hawaiian culture and language meant that many elders refused to teach their children and grandchildren Hawaiian because white Americans perpetuated the idea that you needed to speak English to be successful and respected in the new Hawaii. With the opening of Hawaiian-only schools, native Hawaiians actively reclaimed and reclaim their ancestors’ language and culture.
A language goes extinct when all of its speakers pass away, and no comprehensive records of the language are leftover to be studied by future generations. Computers/technology help in reviving dying languages. However, communities must encourage their youth to learn the language themselves and spend time learning from elders in the community, specifically those that speak the traditional language as their first language. In understanding the efforts of Hawaiian natives and Bud Lane, it becomes clear that rescuing a language from imminent death takes a lot of time, effort, and resources. It is a mission that a community member, linguist, etc. will likely spend the rest of their life pursuing.
Comments
I remember learning this during SDLC 105 and it felt a bit sad and strange that languages that people spoke can just disappear. With the rise of globalization, more common languages tend to replace the traditional languages that are spoken and there just is not enough time to learn all the languages and apply them. I see something similar happening with specific Chinese dialects that slowly fade away because of the prevalence of standardized learning and globalization.