[Foundation-l] List of Wikimedia projects and languages

Tue Jul 12 09:47:17 UTC 2011

Milos, it is a fantasy of many that is not supported by research, that just
because people are rich or have technology, their language will magically
not die. I have never been to New York or London and am not talking about
such cities; I am talking about medium-sized cities around the world
(although large ones like Lagos and Sao Paolo are probably at the forefront
of language cemeteries in these days).

Where I live, there are approximately 20 languages spoken by indigenous
people within a several hours drive; this includes languages like Navajo
with hundreds of thousands of speakers, as well as languages like Mojave
with now not so many. We have the whole range of situations here for
language survival/death, including languages dying in rural isolated
communities, languages dying in or near urban areas (Phoenix is a medium
city, with about 4 million people, but it is also fast-growing, when I was
born here a little over 20 years ago there were 2 million), and languages
whose survival appears to be ensured for at least a few generations, based
on current statistics of intergenerational maintenance, bilingualism, and
other predictors of language death or survival (only two, unfortunately). We
also have on top of that the case of Spanish, which is also not being
maintained intergenerationally, and several smaller immigrant and refugee
communities with not-abnormal intergenerational linguistic tendencies.

All of these languages are now written; some are taught to children in
schools, and some are blessed with very fierce defenders who do everything
they can to promote their language among their people. However, in the fight
against the encroachment of the LWC, the best weapon is simply to not speak
the LWC, which people are not likely to do because of all the benefits that
come with being able to speak a LWC. Eventually (usually 1 generation when
they go to a school taught in LWC, perhaps 2 when they don't go to school at
all), most members of the ethnic group find it is easier for them to express
themselves in the LWC, their skills in the native language begin to erode,
and they prefer to speak the LWC even with people from their own linguistic
group of the same age. This is especially true when they share all living
environments, going to school and work together and even marrying one
another. Generally, the people in the 3rd generation are only passive
bilinguals, understanding but not speaking the language. Sometimes this
stage is delayed until the 4th or 5th generation, but I can't think of a
case in history where it didn't end up happening with full social
integration. If you can't speak a language, you can't pass it on to your
children, and then it dies.

This process is repeating itself around the world, not just with poor and
illiterate people, but also with rich and well-read people who find more
economic and social benefits in using a LWC. This is unfortunate, but so far
nobody has been able to find a remedy, and just writing encyclopedias in
minority languages doesn't seem like a viable solution to the problem of
language attrition and death, although perhaps it helps to raise the
prestige a bit.

There are data which I can show you which demonstrate that the linguistic
diversity of the world is decreasing at an alarming rate. Although some
speakers of dying languages love their languages very much and spend a great
deal of time working hard to keep them alive, this is not the case for
people with neither the time or the resources to give much thought to saving
their language. Even people who fight tend to lose this battle,
unfortunately, with only a handful of exceptions.

Intermarriage, when it becomes widespread, inevitably leads to language
death even more than migration to cities. Perhaps someone who is half-Roma
will speak Romani, but what if the half-Roma marries a non-Roma? Their
children will be only one quarter Roma. As people mix more and more, the
likelihood that the minority language will survive decreases to be almost
negligible.

Sadly, even people who live in a physical/social environment otherwise
totally cut off from the LWC may switch to the LWC over several generations
if it is the language of school and school attendance through the end of
secondary school is high or universal, and also the language of government
and perhaps radio or television. Wars, or mandatory conscription (practiced
in quite a few countries) tend to increase language death as well, since
armies need to share a common language, and soldiers often return home and
teach their children the language they learned in the army (this struck a
blow to many languages in the US, as well as Breton in France and many
countless other languages around the world).

2011/7/11 Milos Rancic <millosh at gmail.com>

> On Tue, Jul 12, 2011 at 00:34, M. Williamson <node.ue at gmail.com> wrote:
> > No, Milos, my "reasoning" is not "of the industrial age". It is backed up
> by
> > first-hand experience and by research. People who live in cities are by
> > nature a part of a larger urban community, with few exceptions (if there
> is
> > some kind of enforced segregation, like ghettoization of Jews which often
> > preserved Yiddish in urban environments pre-holocaust), which means it is
> > very, very, very highly likely that their children will learn the LWC of
> the
> > city in addition to the language of their parents. There is also a much
> > higher chance that children who grow up in the city will marry someone
> > outside of their own linguistic group, which often means their children
> will
> > be raised primarily in the main language of that city. Now, like I said
> in
> > my original e-mail, a 100% bilingual minority group does not usually stay
> > bilingual for more than a couple of generations, especially in an urban
> > environment where they must interact on a daily basis with people who do
> not
> > speak their language, and often, might only use their own language at
> home.
> >
> > Also, keep in mind that the idea of "generations" varies from country to
> > country. In some countries, people typically don't give birth until
> mid-late
> > 30s; in others, it is in the teenage years, so things like language death
> > happen a bit more rapidly as the new generations come more quickly.
>
> You are talking about cities like New York and London are; or about
> communities which have strong social reasons to forget their native
> language. Besides that, you are not counting the fact that people who
> speak the same language are able now to reach each other more easily.
>
> In the most of the cases migrants are forming neighborhoods and they
> keep their language because they are semi/self-ghettoized. Such
> languages have chance to survive if there is written culture. And if
> the language hasn't disappeared during the time when descendants stop
> to struggle for survival, some of the descendants are starting to
> learn the language again.
>
> Your scenario is well known everywhere on the planet. However, many
> things are changing thanks to the Internet and much better
> possibilities for communication.
>
> Here are two opposite examples from Serbia:
>
> * My grandfather came from the Torlak area to Belgrade with my father
> who was ~10 years old. Prestige language of Torlak speaking population
> from Serbia is Serbian and Torlak doesn't have written culture. My
> father knows Torlak. My mother is from other part of Serbia and I
> didn't use to go to the village near Pirot often. I understand Torlak
> well, but I don't speak it. However, my brother and my sister speak
> Torlak. But, it is true that their children would know just a couple
> of Torlak words.
>
> * Roma languages from Serbia are in constant state of shrinking. Their
> prestige language is Serbian, but not just that: their prestige
> ethnicity is Serbian. I know a number or the third generation of
> integrated Roma who don't know a word of any Roma language. But, some
> of those from the third generation are now leaning Romano-Serbian, as
> a couple of years ago it's finally got written form. It is possible
> that we'll have Wikipedia in Romano-Serbian in a couple of years.
>
> Note that the state of their language was probably among the worst for
> a language of that amount of speakers (170k): Very negative attitude
> toward language *and* ethnicity, no written culture, high rate of
> marriages with the dominant population; the only social environment in
> which it is used regularly are slums and all of them want to leave
> slums and integrate into the majority population. However, it is
> highly likely that all of Roma languages will survive, thanks to the
> increased awareness for their situation and Internet and mobile
> phones.
>
> They don't need anymore to be in slums to be able to communicate in
> their language. A lot of them won't use Romano-Serbian in written
> form, but better communication will allow them to raise children who
> would know their language and who would be willing to educate their
> children in the language of their grandparents. Just a couple of
> decades ago such scenario wouldn't be possible.
>
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