Languages, due to their close connection to culture, can go extinct when an ethnic group assimilates to a larger surrounding regional/national culture, when young people do not learn the language and instead learn this more popular language, and when the elder speakers of the language are unable to pass on the tradition and pass away. These processes are unique to specific languages and circumstances; sometimes this process can be more or less "organic", as in there aren't institutional power structures at play that oppress an ethnic group and suppress the use of their language. However, the much more sinister process of language erasure, as occurred to many native American languages in the 1800s and 1900s, can result in a total loss of connections between one and their ancestors.
Language extinction is deserving of much attention today due to the fact that almost half of the currently existing languages in the world are in danger of extinction. K. David Harrison highlights the necessity of action to prevent this by presenting a hypothetical in which half of the world's great monuments or half of the world's species would go extinct. He believes that progress can be made by first presenting the digestible notion that languages are disappearing rapidly and that these languages hold much cultural value that is lost with their extinction.
Harrison argues that one of the most important dynamics that must be addressed is the idea of specialization in the sciences: when scientifically-inclined people choose a discipline such as chemistry, biology, physics, etc. they tend to sequester themselves to this field and not do much "cross-field" collaboration or discourse. Extended to the world of the "hard sciences" as a whole, Harrison identifies a mindset of 'discovery' that has western imperialist undertones that makes collaboration with anthropologists, linguists, etc. much more difficult because of this perceived lack of self-reflection.
While many languages have already entered the sands of time and will be lost forever, it is not too late to try to save endangered languages by interacting with these cultural bearers and recording their speech and language expression, so that it can potentially be learned, practiced, or simply appreciated by future generations.
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