Retell Lecture

A language dies when the last person who speaks it dies. But you know, sometimes people say it dies when the second-last person who speaks it dies, because the last person has nobody to talk to. Well, of course, languages have come and gone throughout history as communities have come and gone. But what’s happening now is something really quite extraordinary. Well, there are about 6000 languages in the world at the moment, more or less. Nobody knows the exact number. Of these, about half of them are so seriously in danger, are likely to die out in the course of present century. Now the present century is a hundred years, half is 3000 languages. So, that means one language is dying out somewhere in the world average every two weeks. There are all kinds of reasons why languages die; one is physical reason when people are affected by famine, disease and earthquake. Another is genocide, when some countries deliberately stamp out a small language. The main reason is globalization. That is, some huge languages in the world, like English, Arabic, Spanish and French, and these are like stream rollers crushing the smaller languages they find in their path. A great deal can be done to preserve endangered language. The first thing is that the people themselves must want the language to be preserved. That’s very important. The second thing is that the powers- that- be must want the language to be preserved. They must be respect for the minority languages in their care. The third thing has to be there, of course, is cash. It costs quite a lot of money to preserve an endangered language. Think about it, you have to train the teachers, you have to write books for the children. And all that sorts of things. It doesn’t cost an extraordinary amount money, but it does cost a bit. So without money, endangered languages don’t have a positive future.