Lost Languages
June 25, 2007 by franhatt
In Lithuania the language was kept alive against the odds when the Russians were trying to stamp it out, it could so easily have become extinct if the people had allowed it. After a little research I discovered that hundreds of lanuages are dying out out as I write this, for many reasons, with some overlap with the extinction of plant and animal speacies. There is forced assimilation, distruction of the habitat of speakers, genocide, but there is also the influence of digital media. Bombardment of the world with films and information presented in the most widely spoken languages. Who can blame the individual for speaking the language that will give them economic or social advantage? There are around 6000 languages today but it is possible that we are heading in the direction of a single world language. Optimistic predictions by linguists estimate that as many as 90% of the world’s total languages will be threatened with extinction in the next century. What are the cultural implications of this?
