If, like Ludwig Wittgenstein, you believe that “the limits of my language are the limits of my world,” then your world is getting smaller. Experts estimate that over half of the six to seven thousand spoken languages will become extinct by the year 2100, and the vast majority of languages have fewer than 10,000 native speakers left. Language death is hardly a new phenomenon. Throughout history, some languages have evolved while others have fallen out of use. At times, these losses can be attributed to processes of assimilation in an increasingly interconnected globe. Scottish Gaelic, for example, was gradually replaced without a conscious policy. But in many cases, language death results from direct action, not natural deterioration. Colonialism and globalization have hastened the endangerment of many tongues throughout the world. Government policies often privilege one language over another, sometimes leading to oppression so severe that it can be considered a sort of linguicide. In recent years, interest in protecting endangered languages has surged, and governments across the world have attempted to stem those language’s decline.
Even when languages fade from use through uncoerced processes of assimilation, they are still worth protecting. Only one third of current languages are accounted for by a writing system, so the demise of a language often implies the loss of a culture’s entire oral tradition and body of knowledge. Furthermore, language diversity is of enormous scientific interest, offering a window into myriad ways of seeing and processing the world around us. In the words of Columbia University linguist John McWhorter, languages “are variations on a cross-cultural perception of this thing called life… surely that is something worth caring about.”
Undoubtedly, languages are inextricably linked to cultural identity. While culture exists beyond language, language is a powerful conduit for connection and community. Because it implies internal unity and separation from an outside other, a common language has often been weaponized by nationalist movements across the globe. As a result, even establishing what counts as a language is often an exercise more political than scientific. Linguists joke that a language is just a dialect with an army and a navy. The official language of the Valencian Community in Spain, for example, is Valencian, even though it is indistinguishable from Catalan. Similarly, citizens of Bosnia, Serbia, Croatia, and Montenegro all speak closely related but legally distinct varieties of the same language. This leads to curious arrangements: In some Bosnian towns, children at the same school head to separate classrooms to be taught in languages that differ in little more than their names.
Given language’s power to unite, it is hardly surprising that regimes throughout history have depended on oppressive linguistic homogenization policies to suppress dissent. Often, homogenization efforts went hand in hand with the spread of public education—the classroom is a perfect place to impose the dominant language. In 19th-century Wales, children were punished for speaking Welsh rather than English in schools, a common policy in countries dealing with linguistic diversity. Indigenous children in the United States and Canada were forced into residential schools where they were forbidden from speaking in their native tongues and were physically and sexually abused when caught doing so. For the modern nation-state and its growing administrative apparatus, a common language was both a tool of cohesion and a matter of expediency. The states that emerged from these policies were stable and efficient, but the costs involved were immense.
The rise of colonialism also opened a particularly ugly chapter in the history of linguistic hegemony. Admittedly, the imposition of language onto the conquered has existed throughout history, from the Inca of South America to the aboriginal peoples of Oceania. But through their bureaucracy and education systems, European colonizers imposed their languages with ruthless efficacy. Local languages were banned, or at the very least systematically depreciated. Illogical colonial geography, that confined many disparate peoples within arbitrary borders, meant that even when indigenous languages were accorded some recognition, one local tongue was privileged, often controversially, over others. British rulers in northern India, for instance, worsened a long-running political dispute over the relationship between Urdu and Hindi, distinct standardized versions of the same Hindustani continuum, by granting privileged administrative status to Urdu over Hindi.
Decolonization only underscored the importance of language as a political tool. In many former colonies, government affairs and education are conducted in the languages of past colonizers, even when few citizens speak them as a first language. English is the sole official language of Namibia, for example, even though less than three percent of the population uses it at home. In other instances, it was too controversial to anoint one of the many local languages over the others, leaving the colonial language in place. According to India’s 1949 constitution, English was to be phased out as an administrative language, but efforts to impose Hindi as a national language faced resistance from speakers of other languages, so the use of English persists.
On the other hand, decolonization has finally given governments across the world the opportunity to salvage their local languages. Often, this means finally teaching them in schools; Haiti has recently allowed Haitian Creole as a medium of instruction rather than the rarely-spoken French, a policy that could help quell exclusiveness in education. New Zealand has officially recognized the Maori language since 1987 and the government has spearheaded efforts to save it. Australia and Mexico have implemented similar programs for indigenous languages. Meanwhile, the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages commits its 33 signatory states to protect and promote the use of such languages.
While renewed interest in promoting minority languages is preferable to the homogenizing goals of the past, new government programs can be just as harmful. Promotion of local languages can substitute one form of linguistic hegemony for another. After the end of the Francoist dictatorship in Spain, which suppressed all local languages other than Castilian Spanish, provinces began to promote the use of other historical languages, sometimes with excessive zeal. Pupils in Catalonia, for example, are educated almost exclusively in Catalan, even if they are among the 55 percent of the population that consider Spanish their mother tongue. This linguistic nationalism has been used to fuel the region’s recent secessionist stance and stands in stark contrast to the model employed by other Spanish Autonomous Communities. The Basque country, for example, allows parents to opt for a bilingual education or one in the tongue of their choosing for their children. Worse, ethno-linguistic fervor can at times lead to policies that are completely out of sync with the people’s lived reality. In Mumbai, for instance, local leaders have mandated that all shops display signs written in Marathi, even though most residents cannot read the language. English is a prerequisite for any high-paying job as well as all higher education in India, yet many public schools use only native languages for instruction. Nationalist politicians defend this system, but often send their own children to English-language private schools.
Complicating the political calculus is that keeping languages alive can be enormously expensive, requiring money that could be spent on other programs. The European Union’s commitment to supporting linguistic diversity has caused its translation and interpretation budget to top 1 billion euros per year. Yet those who speak minority languages in places like Ireland, Luxembourg, and other EU countries most often also speak another more common one, meaning that all the money and labor used to translate countless EU documents doesn’t much improve government accessibility.
Even when significant money and energy are devoted to protecting a language, success can be elusive. The case of the Irish language is instructive. Study of the language has long been compulsory in Ireland, yet the policy has done little to revive its social use. Even in areas of the country where Irish remains the main community language—known as the Gaeltacht—fluency is declining, and despite government efforts, only 25 percent of households in those areas were fluent in 2003. These statistics offer a cautionary tale—any efforts aimed at reviving languages may ultimately prove ineffective. Few studies have evaluated approaches to minority language policies, but it seems that any policy that does not impose language use by decree will likely fall short.
Some of the most successful revitalization policies have replaced one oppressive policy with another, creating winners and losers while trampling on the rights of the speakers of certain languages. If we value the preservation of languages for reasons of cultural diversity, such an approach seems counterintuitive at best. Governments should instead turn to policies that support local languages without the excesses of linguistic fanaticism. One promising approach is to make government services and education in these languages available, but not compulsory. Such a model underscores the importance of protecting regional and historical languages, but does so without coercion of any kind. In the face of the inexorable forces of globalization, this strategy faces an uphill battle, but it is one worth fighting.