Languages evolving

[Kristen Harrison]

So this week we read about the lifespans of language -- how languages die (and how some people try to save them), how they evolve and form creoles, how human Language first developed, and how they change linguistically over time. I had heard that languages are dying out, but I never realised the full scale of it. Of the 6,000 or so languages in the world, half of them will die out this century. That's about one every two weeks. I guess that can be blamed on globalization and imperialism, and the cultural dominance of English at the expense of other forms of expression.
So many cultures are all colliding now, from faster and more efficient communication and travel as well as expanding economic and political contact. As a result, the younger generations are gravitating toward speaking the languages they hear on the television and in movies and in music -- usually English, seen as the language of the future and of opportunity. The internet is dominated by a few very popular, very strong languages, with the result that these languages are perpetuated in the next generation of speakers, whose society's former first languages fall into disuse.
I was interested to read about the revitalization efforts some people have taken to try to stop the death of a language, because I hadn't ever heard of these movements. Some of them might just be slowing down the inevitable, but I think it's a great idea to try to save a language, if a community has the necessary resources and commitment, because there is so much identity and history contained within a language and it's always a great shame when one dies out. A language is a society's entire mode of expression of their culture's world view and ideas and philosophies, and it's hard to think how any of us could function if we were the last remaining lone speaker of our language.