Dead languages? How does one know whether a language is no longer active or is dying slowly and gradually? The simplest answer is that if no one is using it anymore, then it is dead.
Linguistic Diversity
Linguistic diversity is as important as any kind of diversity, and the concept has become even more important because of the many dead languages in the world. Gradually, an entire culture is lose, and no one is writing in or speaking the language anymore.
Saving dead languages means encouraging linguistic diversity in an area, even if this means adding more staff in schools to teach the mother tongue languages on top of the main language of the region or country.
This applies to local dialects and their variations. Their promotion can also lead to the discovery of cultural nuances.
Signs of Dead Languages
- Supporting literature, including ortographies, can no longer be found.
- Young speakers are lacking, and aging speakers have no inclination to teach the language to the youth.
- Literary works have become obsolete or lost.
- The original language has been corrupted or changed so much that no one knows what the “original” is like.
Why does a language die?
Some policies, like English Only Policy in schools, lead to the removal of mother tongue language. The migration of native speakers also contribute to dead languages. The misguided notion that speaking the mother tongue is tantamount to being old-fashioned and less modern leads to the death of a language.
Lack of reading materials along with lack of community effort to revive the local language through cultural means can contribute to this phenomenon.
What Can a Library Do to Revive Dead Languages?
Libraries can host events like spoken word poetry reading in native dialect, poetry writing, developing materials in local dialect, writing story books in local dialect, and creating a translator app.