Introduction

There are six or seven thousand languages and every week or two one small language dies.  It dies because it has become irrelevant, only a few people speak it, these things happen. Ninety five percent of languages have less than 1 million speakers, while Mandarin Chinese has 874 million native speakers and English 341 million; Papua New Guinea has 847 languages and a population of 5 million.

But Papua New Guinea is a biodiversity hot spot, not the most diverse, only 13th in the world, but there is a remarkable overlap between maps for biodiversity and language diversity.  Most megadiversity countries are close to the equator with a concentration of biodiversity rich rain forests, while biodiversity hotspots are relatively small regions mostly in the tropics with a concentration of rare and endemic species. The languages spoken by the indigenous people in these counties reflect their culture and traditions, but also their relationship with their environment. 

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Sub Title 1

For communities which live close to the natural environment and depend on it for subsistence, “they rely directly on it for food, medicine, construction materials  and other products essential to their subsistence …. as well as their cultural and spiritual needs.  Over time, through such activities, these communities have developed in-depth knowledge of local ecosystems”1, much of which is transmitted through language.  Words in one language will reflect a range of meanings specific to that environment and will embody the speakers’ view of the world, their place in it, their creativity and the changes in their way of life over time. 

But large scale conversion of land use and unsustainable exploitation of natural resources such as logging, mining, agribusiness, ranching, oil extraction and road building, destroys the ecosystem and the way of life of the people whose land it is.  Also these changes take no account of the fragility of the ecosystem, the forest soils are soon depleted without the natural regeneration provided by the recycling of the flora and fauna.  There is no need for the specialist knowledge associated with indigenous communities and their small languages; those instigating the  changes speak a dominant language which reflects their world view, culture and way of life.  Consequently biodiversity and linguistic diversity are reduced.

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Linguistic diversity is the store of knowledge about how to maintain and use sustainable some of the most diverse, but also vulnerable environments.  With the death of a each language our knowledge dies too and 50% are predicted to disappear by the end of the century, as are 50% of our plant and animal species, and so our ability to sustain life on earth.

There is a growing recognition that communities have a right to self determination and to preserve their way of life, culture and language.  Linguistic assimilation as well as economic and social homogenisation has been imposed and has been seen as advancement.  Changing government policy and going against the flow of globalisation is not easy, but UNESCO’s Universal Declaration on Cultural Diversity’s Action Plan (2001)sets goals to “safeguard the linguistic heritage of humanity and give support to expression, creation and dissemination in the greatest possible number of languages.”  Teaching children in their mother tongue, even if has previously been an unwritten language, has been successful and when resources are scarce there has been greater likelihood of success than trying to teach in an unknown language.  Dominant languages can be second or third languages so small language communities are not isolated from the rest of the world.

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Welsh and Hebrew have been  saved from extinction, but there are other success stories such as N|u the last of the !Ui family of languages spoken by bushmen in the Kalahari.  Their land had been taken by waves of immigrants and apartheid worsened their situation.  With the collapse of apartheid and the Bushmen were trying to reclaim their land, but with no linguistic evidence of their claim to be Bushmen it was proving difficult.  In 1974 a linguist, Tony Traill, had declared their language dead, but he was making CDs of lost languages including a 1930s recording of N|u.  He discovered Elsie Vaalbooi, who still spoke N|u – she thought she was 96, but was in fact 100.  Her discovery linked the bushmen to the land they were claiming and in 1999 they were given 65,000 hectares by the South African Government.  More speakers were discovered in the townships and then three sisters who as children had been exhibited at the 1936 Johanesberg British Empire Exhibition (as remnants of a dying people), burst into song when they heard their language again.  The Nambibian linguist Levi Namaseb has created an alphabet, is teaching young people and recording traditional stories from their elders. The people who speak N|u fluently are aged between 65 and 107, but young people are eager to learn and the language will survive.

1 Sharing a World of Difference.  The Earth’s linguistic, cultural and biological diversity.  Paris, UNESCO Publishing. 2003

Additional Information

For more information on the Bushmen’s return to their lands and the revitalisation of their language see  http://www.opendemocracy.net/content/articles/PDF/837.pdf

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