Extinction of Mother Tongues: Which category do you belong to?
What is your Mother Tongue? How many people do speak that language along with you? Have any idea?
Our world was home for almost 20,000 languages some 8000 years ago. But now, that Number has shrunken to somewhere between 6000-7000 dialects. United nation's report says that one spoken language is being vanished once in every two weeks. This data further gets interesting as it figures out few more things that we might not have dreamt of ever. Out of all these languages, only 3-4% are being spoken by almost 96% of people and more than 96% of languages are used by just 3-4% of the world population!
Let me break it into clear numbers; Assume we have 6500 languages that are being spoken all around the world. And our population is 7 Billion.
97% of people speak just 4% of languages - ie 6.1 Billion people speak just 260 languages. Out of them Mandarin used in China and English used in a number of counties fill the lion's share!
3% of us are speaking the remaining 96% of languages - That's quite interesting. 9 million people have been split across by 6200+ languages! That says that, on an average, a group of every 1451 people have their own dialect/language! Imagine, HOW RICH THEY ARE on this world!!
Of these languages, many are on the verge of extinction: Icelandic, Jedek, Elfadalian, Marshallese, Wintu, Tofa and Aka to name a few. If you are Interested in learning more about these endangering languages, click here.
a number of languages have their speakers in single digit. The end of the people using these languages marks the end of the languages itself. It is not a great news at all to hear! Reasons for this extinction can be many-
GLOBALISATION - English has been accepted as the world language. To get better access to Knowledge, Job and life it has become inevitable to learn world languages. This in turns results in the younger generation totally neglecting their mother tongues
ISOLATION - Certain tribes are located in far-flung areas such as isolated islands and villages located far from the major population. This limits the proliferation of their specific culture and language that causes the extinction in the end.
NATURAL CALAMITIES and POLITICAL CRISIS -When disasters approach a minority group of people by means of natural calamities and political uncertainties, this people and their unique Culture & languages become more vulnerable to attacks.
Image Source - Pixabay , Licence- CC0
Continuous efforts are being made by UN, NGOs and various Governments to preserve these languages. Let's hope they won't disappear forever!
My mother tongue belongs to the second category; ie, the number of users is less.
The language/dialect that me and my relatives use is much similar to the Dravidian languages Telugu and Tamil. But native speakers of either of these languages find it difficult to understand my Mother Tongue. We use this language to communicate in our home and among our Kins. One peculiarity of my mother tongue is, we have no scripts to write down our thoughts! Languages like Tulu and Kongini which are being used in my country also share the speciality of Having no script with my language. It is a weird thing to be unaware of the name of one's mother tongue. Although I use this language of mine on a daily basis, still I'm not able to cope with the name my parents and relatives suggest - Telungu. The reason being, my mother tongue has nothing to do with that language!
But I can communicate fluently both in Malayalam and Tamil, partially both in English and Hindi. So the total number of languages that I can handle stands on 5. As I did my schooling in Malayalam, I regard it as my official language!
Steemit is an international platform and the people using this belong to various parts of the world. Their language, Culture, Way of life etc, everything is different. If you have read this article, would you tell me in comments what is your mother tongue and its peculiarity? I'm eagerly waiting to see the names of different languages that co-exist under the shadow of one big giant - STEEMIT.
An original post by @sathyasankar
I didn't know about the existence of this language in Kerala !! Which is your native place??
Not just this. A number of other languages also do exist here in Kerala. Languages being spoken by the people residing in tribal areas like Idamalakkudi, Muthanga etc are very strange. Thulu, Kongoni and Kannada are in use in Kasargode. When it comes to my district, Idukki, Tamil speaking people are the majority .
My native place is located in Tamilnadu. But I was born and brought up in Kerala.
ഇവിടുത്തെ തോട്ടം തൊഴിലാളികളിൽ ഭൂരിഭാഗവും ഏതാണ്ട് ഞങ്ങളെപ്പോലെത്തന്നെയാണ്. The strange language we speak is very much associated with the caste system being followed in Tamilnadu.
Watch this video where a Tamil school in Munnar is documented. Interestingly, the mother tongue of the anchor in this video is 'Tulu'. I bet not many so called malayalees can speak Malayalam as fluently as she does!
My mother tongue is called "Ehugbo" but it is an Igbo dialect, it's origin is the Southeastern part of Nigeria.
But I was born in the South south side of Nigeria where the language is "Efik", and the lingua franca is English (Since England colonized Nigeria), I speak a little Efik, and an average Ehugbo and an average General Igbo, and very good English 😀😀
These really are staggering data you've dropped here, it seems the world is slowly coming to the stage where only one language would be spoken by everyone, because I don't see any sign of stopping with the trend of mother tongues being lost.
Do you think this would rather be a good thing, @sathyasankar? Wouldn't it be nice if everyone is speaking the same language all over the world? No language barrier and stuff? You can go anywhere and talk to anyone and they'll get everything you say? It might not be so bad to lose these languages though 😀
@nevies, the son of Aphrodite
Wow..!! These languages you have mentioned here are entirely new names to me. I had few friends from Africa who spoke Kiswahili, Which belongs to Kenya I guess. Someone in the history knew almost 50 languages. Learning about languages itself is a different stream of science!
It is quite interesting to talk about a single world language, English has that potential and will be in that position within 50 or 100 years! But our mother tongues and cultures have to be preserved at any cost!
You're right, Kiswahili is spoken in Kenya and some other African countries.
I'll like to hear your reasons why you think our mother tongues should be preserved at any cost 😎
No language have such a property. It is said that each and every language which grows in size will collapse and perhaps divide into other languages. It is suspected that this happened to many extinct languages. This is some information theory related bound. I am not an expert. And I have no citations right now. English is in immense pressure to be honest because of the surge of words and usages from many languages. There is a possibility that the language collapses. But I don't know how and why even!
My mother tongue language is "Dogri". Our language is listed in 8th schedule. Added in 2003 by 92 the amendment.
I love to speak in Dogri no matter I am in big mall or shop. We never neglected and even teach our children . This represent our uniqueness.
Like steemit wealth distribution, this is another case of power law distribution. You know my mother tongue. So I am not commenting about it. :)
Thank you man for that resteem!
Not just steemit, but also every wealth distribuition follows the suit. And if we have atleast 1 steem with us, most probably we are in a better position than majority of the so called Steemians! The world is just like that.
Coming to your mother tongue, It is Malayalam, One song that comes to my mind and takes me back to my childhood songs is this song - Title song of Kairali TV.. I just love it!
:) I remember this song. Asianet also had a similar song.
I doubt it. Yes, most wealth distributions follow the power-law. But there are rare exceptions like the Nordic economies if I am correct.
My mother tongue is Tamil but as we are living in Kerala, it is now a crazy mix of Malayalam and Tamil. Neither here nor there- a situation like Trishanku
Haha...But my situation is exactly thrisanku as we deal with 3 different languages.. A unknown language similar to Telugu at home, Malayalam with neighbours and friends and Tamil when we visit Tamil people living here and Tamilnadu! But out of this all, I like Tamil the most as it is one of the oldest languages in the world itself. I love the Tamil accent of Sri Lankan people the most.
இலங்கையில் வாழும் எம்மின மக்களை நேரில் சந்திக்க வேண்டுமென்பது என் நெடுநாள் ஆசை!
hope your desire is fulfilled
Srilankan Tamil is said to be the real Tamil. Even my Chennai friends privately agreed this. 😂
Even Sri Lankan Tamil is not that pure. I have known many refugees who came to India during the war time. I like their Tamil accent the most!
a beautiful and important post... a topic which I am very interested in... my language Bengali is in no danger of extinction but I feel the pain and loss of the slowly dying languages
Even Bengali is gradually dying because of the intervention of English..!
I don't think Bengali is dying... It's changing definitely... All languages change over time... Language has often been compared to a flowing river which changes as it flows... Sadly many languages are truly dying
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