Endangered languages: its deteriorate situation and the solutions
With approximately 7 billion population, currently, there are around 6900 languages used all over the world (Romaine, 2007). However, most of them are not be used by sufficient population so that their survival may be faced with threaten now or in the future. According to Sallabank (2011), 50 to 90% languages will disappear in nearly 100 years. Though it seems that the living conditions of those languages are not irrelevant to ordinary people’s daily life, the disappearance of languages does threaten humankind’s cultural diversity and natural environment, thus this essay is to first disclose the negative consequence of the language dying problem and …show more content…
First of all, enacting new legislation and using regional instruments to guarantee those vulnerable languages speakers’ right will enable languages to survive among their users. In the case of language preservation, laws are just the minimum standards, which can at least ensure the possibility for endangered languages to exist, so it is indispensable. This method has been put into practice before and has received a good outcome. In Sri Lanka, Since 1956, the government there has introduced at least 5 policies including 1978 Constitution, which resolved the conflicts between Tamil and Sinhala, to ensure people’s right to choose their languages. Now, their goals have been achieved. For instance, apart from English, the government ensures that Tamil and Sinhala are be taught in school. In addition, Tamil and Sinhala are also among the official languages in the councils. These outcomes indicate that legislations can work out well in some situations.(Abayasekara, …show more content…
This method can achieve higher visibility of the articles of endangered languages in media, so it can raise people’s awareness and achieve its goal to some extent. Rivenburgh’s research (2011) shows that between 1971 and 2006, 595 English articles concerning about endangered languages appeared in print across 15 western, industrialized countries available through ProQuest and LexisNexis Academic, among which 53 of them, far more than the average amount which should be 34 per two years, appeared between 2000 to 2002 when UNESCO held the activities. However, because of “benign neglect” (means do not focus on the bad consequence of an event), when media report this kind of news, the public might cannot really understand its societal implications but just take them as anecdotes.(Nettle & Romaine,
With approximately 7 billion population, currently, there are around 6900 languages used all over the world (Romaine, 2007). However, most of them are not be used by sufficient population so that their survival may be faced with threaten now or in the future. According to Sallabank (2011), 50 to 90% languages will disappear in nearly 100 years. Though it seems that the living conditions of those languages are not irrelevant to ordinary people’s daily life, the disappearance of languages does threaten humankind’s cultural diversity and natural environment, thus this essay is to first disclose the negative consequence of the language dying problem and …show more content…
First of all, enacting new legislation and using regional instruments to guarantee those vulnerable languages speakers’ right will enable languages to survive among their users. In the case of language preservation, laws are just the minimum standards, which can at least ensure the possibility for endangered languages to exist, so it is indispensable. This method has been put into practice before and has received a good outcome. In Sri Lanka, Since 1956, the government there has introduced at least 5 policies including 1978 Constitution, which resolved the conflicts between Tamil and Sinhala, to ensure people’s right to choose their languages. Now, their goals have been achieved. For instance, apart from English, the government ensures that Tamil and Sinhala are be taught in school. In addition, Tamil and Sinhala are also among the official languages in the councils. These outcomes indicate that legislations can work out well in some situations.(Abayasekara, …show more content…
This method can achieve higher visibility of the articles of endangered languages in media, so it can raise people’s awareness and achieve its goal to some extent. Rivenburgh’s research (2011) shows that between 1971 and 2006, 595 English articles concerning about endangered languages appeared in print across 15 western, industrialized countries available through ProQuest and LexisNexis Academic, among which 53 of them, far more than the average amount which should be 34 per two years, appeared between 2000 to 2002 when UNESCO held the activities. However, because of “benign neglect” (means do not focus on the bad consequence of an event), when media report this kind of news, the public might cannot really understand its societal implications but just take them as anecdotes.(Nettle & Romaine,