On 10/09/2008, mboverload mboverloadlister@gmail.com wrote:
On Wed, Sep 10, 2008 at 2:08 PM, Nikola Smolenski smolensk@eunet.yu wrote:
The point is, it is easier and cheaper to educate people in their language than to force a foreign language on them.
Maybe I'm just a self-centered American with a superiority complex.
Bingo. Yes, it would be more cost-effective if the world all spoke one language, but learning a language isn't an easy task. Many Americans often assume that "most people" around the world speak or at least understand English. I've heard so many people say this, it's really sad.
The idea that things around the world are the same as at home seems to be a frequent one. The average American idea of the linguistic abilities of the world seems to go something like this, based on my experience:
Almost everybody on the planet speaks English, and those who don't, speak Spanish.
Of course, there are billions of people who don't speak English. Many millions, if not billions, of adults studied English every year of their schooling all the way through the end of university, and are still not fluent.
A handful of countries around the world can be considered mostly fluent in English as a second language, and most are in Europe.
Yes, language extinction is an every-day reality. However, it's not really a serious threat to the larger languages, let's say those with over 10 million speakers, which number at least 60, and a very minor threat to most of those with over 1 million, which number 200.
By saying that everybody speaks English, you're kind of jumping the gun. We are seeing a shift in the world today, linguistically speaking, I think.
Cultures and peoples are abandoning local languages in favor of languages of wider communication, or LWC. However, there are sort of "tiers" of LWC.
In some parts of the world, every village has a different language. Let's say, for sake of example, that we are in a part of the world that is politically subdivided like this: Country, Region, County, District, Village.
Within the village, there is only one language, but in the rural district, there are perhaps 30 different villages, each with its own language and about 50-100 residents each. One of the villages in the district is the district capital. It is bigger than the other villages, with about 500 people, and its residents are slightly wealthier and more prestigious. At the first phase of loss of world language diversity, people from the other villages in the district are abandoning their language in favor of the language of the district capital.
After this language shift is complete, or perhaps even while it is still taking place, people from the district begin to shift to the more prestigious language of the county seat, a small town of about 5,000 people.
As you can imagine, the next stage is for the entire county to shift to the highest prestige language of the region, probably the one spoken in the regional capital or the main city. The main city in the region is a modest city by world standards, of about 50,000 people, but to a man from the village who has never ventured far from home, it is a big place.
Then, of course, comes a shift by the region to the language of the national capital, where maybe 100,000 or 1 million people live.
The time each stage takes is variable. Sometimes, it is very slow; other times, entire stages can be skipped over with a shift directly from the village language to the national language.
However, none of this happens overnight. Any language shift, where a culture that was formerly speakers of one language shifts to become native speakers of another, takes at least two generations, often more.
Urbanization, of course, speeds this process greatly.
Many people overestimate the effect of colonization on language shift. Kinshasa, officially considered a Francophone city, actually only has 40% of its population fluent in French. Most use Lingala, an African language, as a lingua franca. Of course, Lingala is a Language of Wider Communication itself.
This is not to say that a colonial history cannot bring an "international" language to become the native language through urbanization. Abidjan, Cotê d'Ivoire, is estimated to be between 75% and 99% Francophone.
Lagos, the largest city in Africa, communicates in a mixture of Nigerian Pidgin and standard English.
Increased internal mobility in developing countries also promotes adoption of a common language, such as English or Hindi in India, or Swahili or English in some East African nations.
At the current rate, it is safe to say that there will be far less languages spoken on this planet in 100 years. However, I am almost certain the number will still be well above 100. Maybe someday the world will speak one language or even a handful of them, but globalization is not going quite as quickly as some might say. The linguistic situation in Africa, for example, is still developing, and it will be interesting to watch. We are in a very exciting period of history in many aspects, and while I personally think language loss is unfortunate, it does also have a few benefits.
Mark