Nivkh case study The process of globalization, and earlier the colonization, influenced not only political and economic map of the world, but the language spread and existence all over the world. Linguists admit that languages tend to vanish and die. Jack Hitt (2004) outline that half of the languages, which currently exist in the world, will disappear by the end of this century. The UNESCO report, completed by Matthias Brenzinger and Tjeerd de Graaf, emphasize that “up to 90 % of the world’s languages may well be replaced by dominant languages by the end of the twenty first century” (p. 1), which means that there will remain less than a thousand of languages out of seven thousand present in the world nowadays. What happens to languages
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Formerly, the language was called gilyak, and even nowadays some works utilize this name (tr. Bitkeeva, n.d.). Salminen (2007) outlined that there were only several hundred users of the language. According to the data, presented by Institute of Linguistics of the Russian Federation (tr. Bitkeeva, n.d.), there were 688 speakers of the Nivkh language in 2002. The decline of language speakers is obvious, as the Russian census of 2010 showed that only 198 speakers of the Nivkh language left (Gruzdeva, 2015). Though, some researchers as Ekaterina Gruzdeva (2012) consider the language to be moribund (p. 65), Kibrik, referred by Enthologue, (2000) consider it to be …show more content…
Tijeer de Graaf and Hidetoshi Shiraishi (2013) note that after the colonization process began, the number of Nivkh speakers started to decline, as it was dominated by languages of stronger nationalities, such as Russians (p. 56). The occupation of Sakhalin in 1945 did not positively influence the Nivkh language. New Soviet Union immigrants arrived to the island, and most of the Nivkh population had to shift from their native language to Russian. Here, social factor plays a major role in the language shift. As the colonization of the island went on, even such isolated communities as the Nivkh speakers, had to communicate with the Russian administration, using the new, dominant
Formerly, the language was called gilyak, and even nowadays some works utilize this name (tr. Bitkeeva, n.d.). Salminen (2007) outlined that there were only several hundred users of the language. According to the data, presented by Institute of Linguistics of the Russian Federation (tr. Bitkeeva, n.d.), there were 688 speakers of the Nivkh language in 2002. The decline of language speakers is obvious, as the Russian census of 2010 showed that only 198 speakers of the Nivkh language left (Gruzdeva, 2015). Though, some researchers as Ekaterina Gruzdeva (2012) consider the language to be moribund (p. 65), Kibrik, referred by Enthologue, (2000) consider it to be …show more content…
Tijeer de Graaf and Hidetoshi Shiraishi (2013) note that after the colonization process began, the number of Nivkh speakers started to decline, as it was dominated by languages of stronger nationalities, such as Russians (p. 56). The occupation of Sakhalin in 1945 did not positively influence the Nivkh language. New Soviet Union immigrants arrived to the island, and most of the Nivkh population had to shift from their native language to Russian. Here, social factor plays a major role in the language shift. As the colonization of the island went on, even such isolated communities as the Nivkh speakers, had to communicate with the Russian administration, using the new, dominant