Will children inherit all out languages?

• Author: Roque, Herminia
• Position: Culture Watch

Many things can lead to people abandoning their native tongue. One is the break-up or transplanting of a community when individuals or groups find themselves immersed in a different cultural and linguistic environment. Another is when individuals come in contact with a more aggressive or economically strong culture, and adults encourage their children to learn the language of the dominant culture, especially as a means to getting a job. The situation is worse when authorities systematically discourage the use of local languages in schools, local government and the media. But an endangered, moribund or even extinct language can be saved through a determined language policy.

Experts generally consider a community language to be 'endangered" when at least 30 per cent of the children no longer learn it. The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) reports that about half of the approximately 6,000 languages spoken in the world are under threat, seriously endangered or dying. According to the Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger of Disappearing, languages have died out and disappeared at a dramatic and steadily increasing pace in many parts of the world, especially in the Americas and Australia, over the past three centuries.

International Mother Language Day, celebrated every February, aims at promoting linguistic diversity and multilingual education, and raising awareness of linguistic and cultural traditions based on understanding, tolerance and dialogue. The Atlas shows the "crisis areas" where linguistic diversity is most threatened. About 50 European languages are in danger, and some spoken in Scandinavia and northern Russia are regarded as seriously endangered or moribund. In Siberia, nearly all the forty or so local languages are disappearing, while France has 14 that are seriously endangered.

In Asia, the situation is uncertain in many parts of China; by contrast, India has maintained its extensive and well-catalogued linguistic diversity, thanks to its...