Introduction
Endangered Languages are languages that are growing obsolete because their native speakers are being lost. Endangered Languages are defined as those that won’t be spoken by coming generations in the next 100 years; while languages free from extinction are those that would be spoken by children in the coming 100 years. Most of the languages in the world fall under the endangered languages category with UNESCO approximating the percentage of endangered languages to be around 60%-80% (Global Language Hotspots, 2010). There are however about six thousand dialects spoken globally today.
Language extinction is therefore a result of languages being endangered. Extinct languages are dead languages. Extinct languages actually have no native speakers; in the sense that nobody uses it as his/ her main language (Salzman, 1998). Normally, this is a process that’s facilitated by the replacement of the original language with another (Hale and Ladefoged, 2006). For instance, Native American Languages were also substituted.In Egypt, the Arabian influence replaced the Coptic language and therefore making it extinct (Crawford, 1992).
This study will utilize Eastern Africa as a language hotspot. It will identify the endangered languages in the region and explain the factors that basically lead to the observation of this phenomenon. Eastern Africa is basically comprised of nations namely; Kenya, Somalia, Ethiopia, Sudan and Tanzania. This region is at the Horn of Africa but under the Sub Saharan region of Africa. It is majorly a Kiswahili speaking region with Tanzania embracing it in various social sectors such as education and government programs (National Geographic, 2010). Kenya was majorly a British colony, so English is majorly used in most of its social aspects including corporate affairs, education and other forums. Kiswahili is however it’s national language.
Other languages however characterize the region but are on a smaller scale. The number of languages spoken in this region is 215 with 17 genetic units (Global Language Hotspots, 2010). The threat level of languages in this region is not very high; it has a genetic index of 080 and a research index that’s yet to be determined (Global Language Hotspots, 2010).
The region being in Sub Saharan Africa, it’s majorly under agriculture and nomadic activities. Nomadic activities have led to assimilation and intermixing of languages at various social levels including trade (during the pre colonial era and afterwards). Omotik stands out to be an endangered language in Kenya. It has become moribund with fewer than 50 native speakers; most of them above the age of 40. Most of them had been assimilated into the Maasai language group who are majorly pastoralists in Kenya. The Omotik used to be hunters and gatherers and have been observed to be living among the Maasai population. They are noted to adopt the Maasai lifestyle of pastoralist and even speak Maasai as a language now. The descendants of Omotik grew using the Maasai language. The adoption of this language worked negatively on chances of living on for the language (Brenzinger, 1992).
Other endangered languages in the Eastern Africa region include the Birale who are a classical language group of Afro-asiatic living in Ethiopia. Currently there are only about 20 native speakers. Boon is also under the category of endangered languages with only 60 speakers of Cushitic origin. The Boon speaking group majorly inhabits Somalia. There exists another small minority group inhabiting Tanzania known as Gweno. There are less than 100 native speakers currently in existence. Karo is also an endangered Language with 200 native speakers. The language is spoken among the Omotic group residing in Ethiopia. Molo is an endangered language in Sudan among the East Jebel group residing in Sudan. There are only 100 native speakers left (Global Language Hotspots, 2010). Most the native speakers of these endangered languages are basically farmers, hunters and gatherers or pastoralists. Their religion orientation varies from place to place with groups in Ethiopia, Somalia and Sudan majorly being Muslim whiles those from Kenya and Tanzania being Christian.
Language Extinction
Language extinction is a process whereby the language orientation of a community is affected. As a result, the level of linguistic competency in the language is decreased. Native speakers then become extinct as other languages take root. However, language death should be differentiated from language loss, as the latter depicts a scenario where there is loss of proficiency of language at an individual level only (Denison, 1977).
A comparison can be drawn between the extinction of languages and the extinction of plants and animals. The obvious reasons that could be attributed to this phenomenon are the effects of predators and competitors. The changing environment can also be an attribution to the same. The threat of languages is increasingly becoming prominent with the process going on in discretion. However, we seem to be living in a period of massive extinctions including the cultural heritage of various language speaking groups (Crawford, 1992).
However, the rate of language extinction cannot be correctly verified like the rate of plant and animal extinction through use of fossil records. Modern culture and technological revolutions have been noted to contribute immensely to language extinction. This has greatly encroached on the way of life for many native speakers. It has even sought to change the environment in which they live in. Consumerism and individualism has been noted to be great facilitators to language extinction. This has occurred on a forum of Western perpetration of cultures across various cultural blocks. A resultant destruction of land and livelihoods has been noted with a direct influence towards assimilation into dominant cultures. Unfortunately, this dominant pressure on assimilation is directed towards indigenous groups. The world’s bio diversity has greatly been affected as a result. Cultural and linguistic identities have also suffered the same impact (Denison, 1977). The case of the Omotik is a good example because they lost their cultural identity from being hunters and gatherers to pick up Maasai’s culture of pastoralism.
Language resuscitation is however possible as can be seen with the case of Hebrew language which had been dead for almost 2000 years but re-introduced in Israel. This effort to revitalize extinct language involves a lot of social and educational programs. The effort to revitalize languages is however ill-advised, if there is little hope for reviving extinct languages. Tremendous capital requirements are however needed to revitalize languages that are in the process of extinction or already extinct. This is because of the programs that have to be undertaken to initiate this course (Brenzinger, 1992).
Languages in Eastern Africa under the threat of extinction aren’t being countered with much revitalization efforts though. This is because the small minority languages are ignored by the government and other social groups. Most of the endangered languages are pre colonial and are overshadowed by other dominant but minority languages spoken in their countries of origin. For example the Omotik is being overshadowed by the Maasai language which is a small but dominant language in a larger context of a Swahili speaking nation (Kenya).
Governments have therefore neglected small languages in a wider quest to embrace national languages that would facilitate integration efforts. This is so, because the region (Eastern Africa) has been characterized by incidences of tribalism and civil unrests traced to a lack of integration among language speaking groups. Not much effort is being made to save the dying languages because of this reason.
For instance, recent community violence in Kenya after 2007 general election was greatly attributed to tribal differences between major language speaking groups. The government then undertook a massive social exercise to diffuse the influences of specific language speaking groups for a major pursuit of nationalism. Civil societies and the government have since then been involved in national exercises to promote the use of Kiswahili as a national language at the expense of smaller languages. However, specific language groups have undertaken individual initiatives to preserve their identities through showcasing authentic group activities like bull fighting and cultural nights that aim at preserving language identities.
Conclusion
Language extinction is critical in the sense that it preserves selective community heritages; though it might be destructive in the sense that it acts contrary to efforts of unifying communities. The context to which language extinction is studied should be analyzed relatively, with regard to the cause for preventing language extinction. The society which efforts for revitalizing languages are undertaken should also be put into consideration (McWorther, 1995). A nation like Israel would seek to gain from preserving its native languages like Hebrew but in the context of Eastern Africa, the effects would be different. This is because Israel isn’t susceptible to civil violence as a result of language identities.
Eastern Africa has experienced some of the worst cases of civil unrests facilitated by language group identities. The Rwanda genocide that took the lives of millions of people across the globe was majorly perpetrated by individual language groups more specifically the Hutsi and Tutsi tribes. These language groups killed each other in a blood bath across the nation which was among the worst forms of humanitarian disasters in the world, to date. The situation would however be different if Rwanda had a unifying language that most citizens would identify with. It would also be difficult for political leaders to use the avenue of language orientation and cultural identity to mobilize groups against each other.
I was aware of language extinction prior to this discussion because of the levels of Western dominance across the globe coupled with various cultural changes across decades. However, this study majorly depends on individual societies and contexts. Western dominance has greatly impacted on indigenous language speaking groups but has led to faster integration of economies, speaking the same language. More integration has also been observed in other social setups like marriage and even tourism facilitation. People would be more inclined to tour places where they can communicate effectively with the people around.
However, dominance of other cultures has been observed to be detrimental to societies at large; for example, the dominance of Western cultures over other conservative cultures. The culture is purported to increase immorality among other forms of social decadence that have led to a loss of core societal values. There have been cultures and individual groups that have been observed to have no issues with the influence of other cultures while some have been observed to be against external cultural influence. The situation is therefore varied.
Language preservation is therefore more detrimental than otherwise thought. There would be more to be gained if languages were to fade away and a more dominant culture used to cover every group. This would eliminate small segregational effects being experienced in the society today. Other sectors of the society have also been noted to develop as a result of the society integrating on a language front. Caution should however be made to preserve positive community identities like sports, specific economic activities and religious orientation but this shouldn’t be left to affect integration between language speaking groups for the betterment of the society.
References
- Brenzinger, M. (1992). Language Death: Factual and Theoretical Explorations with Special Reference to East Africa. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
- Crawford, J. (1992). Language Loyalties: A Source Book on the Official English Controversy. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
- Denison, N. (1977). Language death or language suicide? International Journal of the Sociology of Language, 12, 13-22.
- Global Language Hotspots. (2010). Eastern Africa.
- Hale, K., & Ladefoged, P. (2006). Should Anthropologists and Linguists be concerned about Endangered Languages? New York: Routledge.
- McWorther, J. (1995). Most of the Worlds Languages Went Extinct. New York: Princeton Press.
- National Geographic. (2010). Enduring Voices Project.
- Salzman, Z. (1998). Endangered Languages and Language Death: Language Culture and Society. London: Oxford Publishers.