I have talked a lot about language revitalization on this blog. It might seem a little weird as a topic for a travel blog, but let me explain. Everywhere you travel, you’re going to encounter new languages. This is expected.
But there are many small ones on the sidelines, spoken only privately in homes or in small communities. You may not even know they exist. But they were once as influential in their part of the world as any current language. They’re a vital part of the history and culture of the region.
The decline of these languages is also a great indicator of the recent history in these parts of the world. But when you’re traveling, it can really enhance your experience to look for (or just be aware of) these other languages that are around you. Maybe you’ll learn about one you never expected!
Regardless, I think that knowing about dying languages can enhance your knowledge and appreciation of language as a whole. Language and travel are (and always will be) closely connected!
Unfortunately, despite our greatest efforts, it’s not likely that many of these languages will survive as living, spoken language. At least not everywhere. It’s a sad truth, but it doesn’t mean we should just give up on even trying to save them.
For more, see Language Death and Why You Should Care, How you Should Help, and How It’s Prevented. I also wrote a post detailing why you shouldn’t try to be a vigilante in revitalization efforts.
Why Revitalization Efforts Won’t Succeed Everywhere
I’ve talked about these points a lot in Language Death and Why You Should Care, but I think it’s important for the topic at large that I bring them up again.
In my local area, there are two or three indigenous languages spoken. Off the top of my head, I know Spokane and Coeur d’Alene. (Conveniently also the names of two towns.)
These languages, though, have 2 and 4 native speakers, respectively. I want to clarify: this does not mean these are the only remaining speakers of the language. Rather, they are the only people alive who have spoken the language since birth.
Despite (sometimes very strong) efforts to bring them back, local and federal politics all over the world make it hard to pull languages back from such a point. Economics, media, and even everyday social interactions all play a role in discouraging people from engaging with these languages.
Even something as seemingly simple as recording a dying language can be far more complicated when considering the multitude of dialects that are spoken. It’s not easy to preserve them all. (Shoshoni, for example, has 16 dialects, many of them far more endangered than others!)
These languages, unfortunately, can’t be helped beyond a certain point.
What Will Happen to These Languages?
The fact that we can’t prevent language death shouldn’t stop us from fighting as hard as we can to stop it.
Humans are fighters. It’s not in our nature to give up easily.
My inspiration for writing a fifth post about language revitalization came from The Power of Babel, a Natural History of Language by John McWhorter. He made these points that I now regurgitate, but I wanted to add my own viewpoint to these ideas and explain them a little differently.
Some languages have government-supported revival efforts. The best example of this is Hebrew, which has made a full comeback because of the support of the Israeli government. Similar efforts in Ireland have garnered support from media and educational systems, leading to a bigger resurgence of the language.
Places like Hawaii and New Zealand have worked towards revitalization as well.
These languages are not often spoken as a first language, but over time it may reach a point where everyone in the country can speak the language as a second language. From there, governments and other groups can boost those efforts.
But very few languages get the same level of national and local support.
Many, like Shoshoni (spoken across southeastern Idaho, Wyoming, and Nevada in the USA), are recorded and documented, but might never make a full return. These can be taught, but will not likely reach a point where they can be widely-spoken again. Of course, it’s nice to be optimistic!
Many others will, unfortunately, vanish. There are 7000 languages in the world, many in remote, isolated areas or only spoken by a small community. And while some of these groups simply don’t have a means to preserve their language, others don’t want it to be preserved. It’s a terrible truth, but it’s going to happen.
Being Optimistic
Sure, we could just say “oh well” and let them die off. But that’s the worst option we have, to be honest.
As John McWhorter expresses near the end of his book, it’s still important that we work to preserve these languages even if they’re dying out, and we should work to preserve as many as we can.
Why? Because then the people with heritage embedded in that language can access it in the future and learn about it even on a surface level. And we’ll have records of humanity’s many many ways of describing and understanding the world.
Not doing anything at all to prevent language death is far worse than trying everything we can even if we know we won’t fully succeed. We can protect this information for posterity and give it another chance to come back. (Much like cryogenic stasis in sci-fi stories, someone might have need of that language at some point.)
Conclusion
I’m an optimistic person. I want to hope that we can bring these languages back somehow, and I don’t want to leave this post off on a negative note, so I want to reiterate that these efforts are not worthless. Cataloguing a language, even in an incomplete record, is an honorable and worthwhile endeavor.
We can’t redo history, but we can preserve the present so that those in the future can do better.
If you have any questions, comments, or concerns, leave them in the comments below, or you can contact me directly!
Thank you for reading!
