ENDANGERED LANGUAGES: ON ENDANGERED LANGUAGES AND THE SAFEGUARDING OF DIVERSITY

From what I have been able to learn, based on the model of early-modern and contemporary hunting and gathering and mobile agricultural peoples, the process of language loss throughout most of human history, i.e. the period prior to the development of large states and empires, has been attended by a period of grammatical merger in situations of multilingualism, in geographically con- fined areas, and among quite small communities-as, for example, in parts of Arnhem Land and Cape York Peninsula, Australia, and in the bilingual Sumu and Miskitu communities of Central America. By contrast, language loss in the modern period is of a different character, in its extent and in its implications. It is part of a much larger process of LOSS OF CULTURAL AND INTELLECTUAL DIVERSITY in which politically dominant languages and cultures simply over- whelm indigenous local languages and cultures, placing them in a condition which can only be described as embattled. The process is not unrelated to the simultaneous loss of diversity in the zoological and botanical worlds. An eco- logical analogy is not altogether inappropriate. We understand to some extent the dangers inherent in the loss of biological diversity on this earth. It is correct t (Editor’s note: In November 1989, as an outgrowth of discussions with Colette Craig and Ken Hale, I asked them as well as LaVerne Masayesva Jeanne and Nora England to consider writing brief essays on the topic of ‘responsible linguistics’ for publication in Language. Since this theme is closely related to the topic of the 1991 LSA Endangered Languages symposium organized by Hale, other speakers at the symposium were also invited to contribute to the collection presented here-namely, Michael Krauss and Lucille Watahomigie & Akira Yamamoto. The message of these essays is urgent and vital; I urge all linguists to study them carefully. Ken Hale collected and edited the entire set of essays, and he deserves the profession’s gratitude for carrying out this project.) * I wish to express my gratitude to my co-authors for their contributions to this collection and to the field; to Marilyn Goodrich for her help in preparing the manuscript; and, especially, to the many speakers of endangered languages with whom I have worked.