Circumstances and Causes Around the Death of Canadian Aboriginal Languages - Term Paper Example

Circumstances and causes around language death: the Case of Canadian aboriginal languages. The phrase “language death” has a certain finality about it, but in the field of linguistics it is often quite difficult to define exactly when it has occurred. Crystal suggests a simple definition: “ A language dies when nobody speaks it any more” (Crystal, 2002, p. 1) and goes on to point out that at least two speakers are needed for true communication to take place. Defining exactly who is a speaker of a language, and who is a speaker of a different dialect can be tricky. These problems can be compounded in a situation where the language in question has no written form: “When a language dies which has never been recorded in some ways it is as if it has never been.” (Crystal, 2002, p. 2). This paper discusses the phenomenon of language death, and examines what causes it. Using the example of Canada, the circumstances which help and hinder this process are discussed. It has been noted that language is a very big factor in the formation and sustaining of identity, and that there is therefore a link between the survival of aboriginal languages and the general wellbeing of individuals and of the aboriginal community as a whole. This finding has been substantiated by a recent empirical studies in Canada, where there are some communities which have preserved indigenous languages alongside other communities where the indigenous language has is no longer spoken: “The common theme that cuts across all of the research efforts is that any threat to the persistence of personal or cultural identity poses a counterpart threat to individual and community wellbeing.” (Hallet et al., 2007, p. 393). Specific analysis of suicide rates in young people found that there is a correlation between the death of the original language in the local community, and suicide among young people. The reason why this should be the case appears to be the fact that there is a strong connection between language, culture and identity. Young people who grow up without being able to speak the language of their ancestors, or even that of their grandparents, experience alienation from their own culture, and this causes a rise in public health problems. Using the analogy of a “coalminer’s canary” Hallet et al. show how youth suicide can be a marker of cultural distress, and how this is related to language death. In communities where the indigenous language is not being passed on to the young, suicide rates are higher. The case of Canada is an interesting one, because there is still today a large variety of experience occurring in terms of the way indigenous languages have prospered or died off within a country that operates predominantly in English and French at the national level. In an article from the mid 1980s the examples of North American/Canadian Indian languages Micmac and Maliseet are used to illustrate the way that a whole world view is built into the very structure of the language, including concepts of time, the physical environment, the weather and personal relations. (Leavitt, 1985, p. 266) The indigenous culture embraces time as a continuous process, rather than fixed blocks, while the physical environment is perceived in relation to the speaker, and not to arbitrary compass directions. Weather is spoken of in terms of on-going actions, while relationships are ordered in complex subject/object interactional forms. These structural forms are closely connected with the landscape and lifestyle of the indigenous nomadic societies of previous centuries. The death of such a language causes a dislocation of the community from its traditional understanding of all these key areas, and this, it seems, is why language death causes so much cultural stress. One proposed cause of language death is the “killer language” theory. It is proposed that a language which is attached to powerful national or international forces can sweep over an area and wipe out all other languages in its path. Examples such as the imposition of European languages on colonized countries in the age of imperialism are cited to demonstrate this theory. More modern versions of the killer language theory cite the advent of the internet, and the global presence of English as the predominant language of international business as factors involved in the suppression and eventual extinction of various languages across the world. An exreme form of this theory is found in a more recent study which uses the the term linguistic genocide, (Skuttnab-Kangas, 2000, p. 33) with the suggestion that there is something deliberately destructive about the advance of English, for example, in the internet age. This argumentation suggests that language death should be viewed as an act of aggression, similar to colonization, or to the expansion of an aggressive plant which destroys the biodiversity of the areas which it conquers. It puts all the blame for language death on this monolithic force, and depicts dead languages as victims in this process. Most linguists regard this emotive terminology as an exaggeration of the facts. The Canadian example shows that in reality the process of language development and change is more complex. Language death is sometimes caused by forces pushing people to change, involving an element of compulsion, but more often it is caused the inherent desire of linguistic groups to adapt to suit changing circumstances. There are plenty of examples where communities choose not to adopt the language that is predominant in their local area, such as the Amish in North America (Mufwene, 2006, p. 21). This shows that there is an often an element of choice in whether a language dies or not, even when a widely spoken language appears to be taking over much of the surrounding culture. Geographical factors such as distance from industrial centers, and physical isolation because of mountains and rainforests can also be reasons why some communities retain indigenous languages and some do not. Such isolated communities are more resistant to forces of globalisation with all the cultural and linguistic baggage that comes with it. Another reason for language death, which is often overlooked, is the role of migrations, displacements and consequent conflicts in the decimation of communities. It stands to reason that as a community suffers large numbers of casualties, splits into factions and disperses over a wider area, it is more likely to lose its attachment to traditional language and adapt to the new circumstances in the places where the fragments find themselves. In Canada inter-tribal warfare, famine and large scale migrations were causes of population changes, and this had a large effect on the survival rate of particular languages. It is not justified, therefore, to blame the death of many native American languages solely on the colonizers of Europe and the imposition of their language on the indigenous population, although this was certainly a factor in both direct and indirect ways. It is important that linguists and social scientists understand these processes because they can have significant impact on the way that communities conceive of themselves and relate to each other in the modern world. Marilda Cavalcanti makes some interesting observations about the cultural assumptions that often are unconsciously communicated through well-meaning attempts to prevent or slow down language death. In the Brazilian rainforest, the Asheninka tribe has an education system based on the passing on of knowledge in oral form only, and this implies a very different relationship to language than the Western “graphocentric” focus on textual literacy. Just as the Canadian aboriginal languages were much more firmly attached to the physical location of the speaker, so the Asheninka insist on teaching their children about the world, their language, and their history in one seamless process which is passed on through drawings and stories: “Each drawing which is passed from one generation to another is our writing… As one learns a drawing, one learns its origin, who taught it, who brought it to us.” (Cavalcanti, 2004, p. 322) Research such as this highlights the diversity of approaches to words, images and learning which exists in the world, and the value of languages as a way of gaining new understanding about human nature. It seems, then, that comparative linguists may have unwittingly contributed to the phenomenon of language death in the past, by preserving the mere words and structures of dying languages, and forgetting the dynamic elements that they contain. It is to be hoped that in the future a more sensitive appreciation of the diverse world views and contexts of endangered languages will help support their preservation in a viable form, teaching speakers of other languages about their individual approach as well as taking on elements of more dominant languages and cultures. Language death, and language birth are natural forces that cannot be controlled, but the examples above have shown that much can be done to minimize the damage to communities and ensure that they can be influenced, and elements of dead, dying, or threatened languages can be preserved and allowed to inform and influence other languages in the future. References Cavalcanti, Marilda. “ ‘It’s Not Writing by Itself that is Going to Solve our Problems’: Questioning a Mainstream Ethnocentric Myth as Part of a Search for Self-sustained Development. Language and Education 18 (4), (2004), pp. 317-325. Crystal, David. Language Death. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002. Hallett, Darcy, Chandler, Michael J. and Lalonde, Christopher E. “Aboriginal language knowledge and youth suicide.” Cognitive Development 22 (2007), pp. 392-399. Leavitt, Robert M. “Confronting Language Ambivalence and Language Death: The Roles of the University in Native Communities.” The Canadian Journal of Native Studies 2 (1985), pp. 262-267. Available at: http://www2.brandonu.ca/library/cjns/5.2/leavitt.pdf Mufwene, S. S. Globalization and the Myth of Killer Languages: What’s Really Going on? In Graham Huggan and Stephan Klasen (Eds.), Perspectives on Endangerment. New York: George Olms Verlag, 2005, pp. 19-48. Skuttnab-Kangas, T. (2003) Linguistic Diversity and Biodiversity: The Threat from Killer Languages. In C. Mair, The politics of English as a world language: new horizons in postcolonial cultural studies. Amsterdam and New York: Rodopi, pp. 31-52. Read More