Endangered languages

When nobody understands

The electronic age drives some languages out of existence, but can help save others

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Readers' comments



Actually I could make all the points about nostalgic attachment to old languages (let's hear it for Chaucerian English! - time for a revival?). These after all are abandoned by their speakers' children voluntarily (for the most part), and if they survive taken up instead by the educated as a hobby. Is this such a good outcome?But in fact this debate may be becoming irrelevant - machine translation may be only a decade or two from becoming 'live' enabling each of us to speak our own language and still be understood anywhere. Whether we/our children will actually choose to do so may of course be another matter...

Random Scientist

I am against the often-cited idea that rare languages give some other perspective of looking at the world.Examples are few and controversal (this old saying that Eskimos have 40 words for snow is a lie). People of most languages have ther same perspective, or differ in trifles.Lets reverse the question. If language gives unique perspective, why not invent new languages to enrich the human perspective? Why not protect Klingon, Elven, Ewok and Chewbacca shcreams?I think this illustrates the absurdity of forcefully preserving languages.Gho-bhagaag Raaa!!!!

Random Scientist

Asking people to speak the dying language is a crime. The same crime you would commit if you would prevent people from using modern houses, dresses and medicine. Universally understood language is a necessary tool for modern survival. These people usually have enough problems in adapting to modern world. Dragging them backwards is crime.There are attempts to revive langueages, e.g. Catalan or Basque. But they are tools of political games, and I see their context as dangerous toying with nationalism and ethnic unrest.Vanishing languages - document them together with folk songs, costumes, thatched huts and folk medicinal remedies. But it is wrong to entice people to use them.


I speak six languages, not because I want to but because it turned out to be a necessity moving to Europe in the mid 90s.Although it is great speaking in a different language so that other people cannot understand you, if anything the number of languages should be reduced, and their purity preserved.Have a look at what Chileans and Argentinians have done to the Spanish language, the appalling bastardisation of the Greek language that has occured in Cyprus and the pandemic of collective dyslexia in the UK and you will soon realise that saving languages that are of little use in the World today is somehow less important than presrving the purity of the languages that are still alive and well.

Renato Corsetti

Brian wrote: /> I'll never understand this desire to preserve every language in the world.You will understand when Chinese will be the "lingua franca" and you own language will be disappearing.If you are not willing to learn Esperanto now (i.e. to accept a fair solution to this problem) you will learn Chinese tomorrow.Renato Corsetti



Carl Polley

Chiefpfoot, LaRapsodia: Networked communication leads to increased language contact, and probably further pressure on minority languages, but the internet can also be a force for maintaining linguistic diversity. Here's a site where many native speakers of minority languages (some endangered) have shared their knowledge for present and future generations: http://www.ling.hawaii.edu/~uhdoc/


I grew up in the next village to Ned Maddrell, painfully aware that Manx was then on its last legs. At that time, the only possibility to learn Manx was at a school 15 miles away and not on schooldays either, but on Saturday only. Thankfully the Manx govt. is now much more supportive of Manx and there is a strong revival movement. As a teenager it seemed to me that a 'buffer' language between languages-in-contact might help stem language-devouring by a more powerful group, and I discovered that that was one of the goals of Esperanto, which I learned instead. 'Universal bilingualism' [YOUR ethnic language non-ethnic Esperanto for all] and the preservation of language diversity are now part of the 7-point Prague Manifesto: http://lingvo.org - and now, although I am still not able to learn Manx here in Canada, I am spending my declining years learning closely related Irish (what a challenge!), and using my Esperanto daily on the internet. All languages are worth saving - despite some of the other comments here!


I agree with Chiefpfoot. Although there is definitely a loss when a language dies, there are also innumerable gains.The trend of the modern world has been towards standardization, and this is beneficial in addition to being unavoidable. In the past, in the United States, there were very large dialectical variations across regions, to the point that a person from one region would have a very difficult time understanding a person from another region. Modern communication and mass media has erased this distinction to the extent that it's not uncommon, for example, to meet native Georgians who have no trace of a Southern accent. The fact is, the more people are connected and the more open communication is, the more pressure there is to conform to a standard. This loss of local color is definitely something to be regretted, but is an inescapable effect of modern society and technology. And, aside from the sentimental loss, it is largely a positive one. Consider the fact that, in less developed countries today (especially in rural areas lacking in modern communication and travel technology), you see an incredible amount of linguistic "diversity." There are countries with hundreds of languages and places where people who live 20 miles apart can't reliably communicate.I'm sorry, but that is incredibly inefficient and there's no way that it can survive. People who can communicate well can work better together and can get more accomplished (remember the tower of Babel). And, while sharing a common language doesn't necessarily prevent wars, linguistic misunderstandings have definitely caused more than one.As a previous poster brought up, the loss of linguistic diversity in a region does not condemn that region's inhabitants to monolingualism. Rather, it frees up neural real estate which can then be devoted to learning another, evolutionarily "successful" language. These other languages will not only give the speaker enhanced future prospects, but also provides a completely different world-view and level of cultural insight.Also, unlike the decrease in bio-diversity, the decrease in linguistic diversity is not a modern, unnatural phenomenon (although it's obviously been accelerated, like almost everything else, by modern technology). Languages have been merging, evolving, and dying for as long as man has had the use of them. It's only just in modern time that we've noticed and cared enough about them to miss them. While people who care about their language and their identity should definitely work to preserve it (the efforts of the Maori and the Catalan speakers, for instance), I don't think we shouldn't spill too many tears for the dozens of small languages that die every day in various pockets of the world, unmissed by any but the linguists who study them.


Just imagine it is your own language, the one you dream in, the one your mother taught you, which is on the brink of disappearance. How would you feel then? Saying "just let languages die a natural death" is like saying "I don't care if your mother dies, provided my own mother is in good health". How insensible.

Javi Cantabria

I strongly disagree with Chiefpfoot: languages are an essential part of the Humanity's culture. Saying that only the strongest ones should survive implies that culture is just a good to trade with.

However, it isn't. Not only is it the priceless expression of human thought, but, if we think about its economic value, an investment whose main asset relies precisely on its variety. As the article points out, when a language -or, for that matter, any other type of culture- disappears, we might be losing something invaluable -it doesn't matter whether it is the name of a turtle or the explanation of how a certain indigenous drug is used.

As for the situation of Catalan, I'd like to point out that it hasn't been in a better shape since the War of Spanish Succession. Nowadays, it is an official language in two Spanish Autonomous Regions -I shall not count Valencian-, preserved and promoted by local Governments, sometimes at the expense of Spanish, official throughout the country. Indeed, it may not have the advantage of being a majoritary language, yet it is strongly protected and, therefore, bound to survive.

vin rogue

No doubt this is a good article especially for someone like me who speaks one or two of them.
However, I found it difficult to understand for you only to make references to certain languagues in some parts of our world.
I suppose you should at least make reference or research into Papua New Guinea which has 870 languages. It will be good to know how those people manage to keep those languages.
This is an extra ordinary country, which should at least deserve a mention.
I'm not a Papua New Guinean but I'm amazed with the number of languages spoken there.

Guillem de Berguedý

Manchu, Hua and Gwich’in are just the tip of the iceberg. Many 'less exotic' languages - at least from the point of view of the average reader of The Economist - will be in the same situation in the next few decades. Catalan, my own mother tongue, is one of those: linguists agree that is no longer a question of 'whether', but rather 'when'. Quite a few other languages in Europe will not fare any better, especially those which they do not have a state behind them. Adding insult to injury, some states suffocate any serious attempts to give minority languages within their jurisdiction a fair chance. How many more do we have to lose before those states issue a ‘mea culpa’ communiqué telling the world how sad they are about the loss and informing of their intentions to build a museum exhibiting the corpses? Every language is a source of wealth, to both its speakers and those who will never even know of its existence.

Nut Head

The point in keeping a language is to preserve and enhance ones history, sense of belonging, etc. Also, the diversity of languages reflects the diversity of nature and the human species. Linguistics are constantly learning new things about the mind by just studying the diversity in language!Also, this article does not note that another technology that can save languages is transitional tools. One day, it might be possible to translate any language into your native language.

Frýdýric Wagniýre

Fr�d�ric Wagni�re

Of course, The Economist does not help when its computer systematically mangles diacritic marks that appear quite often in The Economist itself.

Frýdýric Wagniýre

Fr�d�ric Wagni�re

We can only regret that a language dirappears, even if we had no knowledge of it. Sometimes it happens because people were forcibly taught another language. In other cases, a rising standard of living, better employment and the need to attend world-class universities -- Zurich, Cambridge, MIT, etc. -- made the desirable retention of a language like Romantsch, even within the narrow circle of the family, impossible. We only have to think of the millions of immigrants to North America who gradually gave up their mother tongue -- German, Gaelic, Ukrainian, Italian, Yiddish, etc. -- because it was the way for them to achieve the decent life they were denied in their country of birth.


I agree with Chiefpfoot, let languages compete and maintain those that manage to survive on their own. Anyway, what are they proposing to save these languages, what resources do they intend to use; something along the proposal of making English the official language of the US?The bilingualism should go both ways, keep your native language but learn the mainstream language as well. For example, writing textbooks in native languages (as is the case in Mexico) may give indigenous children a sense of belonging but it certainly doesn't help them move beyond a 16th century existence.


I'll never understand this desire to preserve every language in the world: even those spoken by a handful of people in the remotest of regions. Surely, inability to communicate between peoples ranks up there with the causes of wars and conflict (along with the #1 reasons – religions and race). To deny that seems naïve and a bit foolish. So what’s the point of preserving hundreds of languages when the last thing the world needs is another reason to go to war? Yes, multilingual people do better academically and seem to have a lower incidence of memory deterioration... so then teach them English and Mandarin, or Portuguese and German, i.e., the languages that are winning the “evolution” game.

I’m not suggesting forcibly preventing people from speaking these “minor” languages – just let them die a natural, modern day, internet and computer games death and take for granted that there is one less reason for conflict in the world….

Trinidad & Tobago


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