What We Lose When Languages Die

There are roughly 2,000 languages spoken in Africa’s fifty-three countries.   About 40% of these are spoken by communities of less than 5,000 people, and about 70% of these are spoken by less than 100,000 people. It is important to note that just because a language has a small number of speakers does not mean it is endangered, but often this may be the case in Africa.  Language death is inevitable for many of these African languages.  The question is will they become extinct in a hundred years, or thirty?

Why do Languages Die?

Languages die for a multitude of reasons.   The most common cause likely being the pressure weaker languages experience from more powerful or prestigious languages.  This pressure may be caused by demographic, socio-economic, political, and various cultural situations. Many African language die gradually, meaning that the speakers of the language slowly shift to speaking another languages until the first language has become extinct. In many of these situations, minority language speakers want to identify themselves with the majority language speakers to better themselves socially and economically, so they simply stop speaking their mother tongue, and begin trying to speak the new, more powerful language.  If a mother feels that her child will not be benefitted by learning her mother tongue, then she may not choose to teach her child that language and will instead insist that they learn an ex-colonial language or regional lingua franca.  If a child feels ashamed of their mother tongue, they will find a way to stop speaking it.  Because so many of Africa’s languages are spoken by small, and often poor populations, these pressures pose a very real threat to them.

What Do We Lose When a Language Becomes Extinct?

It seems evident that many indigenous languages will decline and potentially become extinct if African countries decide to have only one or two official languages.  The loss may be great if we lose these indigenous languages, many of which do not have writing systems. When languages die we lose information.  We lose information about the history of the language speakers.  We lose information about their beliefs, hopes, and dreams.  Many of the African languages at risk are indigenous and are spoken only by small tribes and communities.  

Many of these smaller populations live off the land, making them experts on native plant and animal species.  It could be possible that these indigenous tribes know cures for diseases that the Western world does not.  Perhaps there is a particular plant that grows near their villages that cures some fatal disease.  When we lose their language, we lose this information.  There are countless reasons linguists and scientists want to preserve and document as many of the world’s languages as they can.  However, with one language going extinct every two weeks, it seems an impossible task, especially since many of these languages at risk do not have writing systems. 

Many Dying Languages

According to Ethnologue.com, there are 136 dying languages in Africa. There are, however, many other African languages already at risk of extinction, and with a drastic move like forcing one or two official languages on a country, the number would drastically increase.  While the extinction of an African language spoken by only two people is inevitable, it seems a waste for one spoken by 50,000 people to decline.  

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