Vanishing Voices The Extinction of the World's Languages

Few people know that nearly 100 native languages once spoken in what isnow California are near extinction, or that most of Australia's 250 aboriginallanguages have vanished. In fact, at least half of the world's languages maydie out in the next century. What has happened to these voices? Should we bealarmed about the disappearance of linguistic diversity?The authors of Vanishing Voices assert that this trend is far more thansimply disturbing. Making explicit the link between language survival andenvironmental issues, they argue that the extinction of languages is part of thelarger picture of near-total collapse of the worldwide ecosystem. Indeed, theauthors contend that the struggle to preserve precious environmentalresources-such as the rainforest-cannot be separated from the struggle tomaintain diverse cultures, and that the causes of language death, like that ofecological destruction, lie at the intersection of ecology and politics.And while Nettle and Romaine defend the world's endangered languages,they also pay homage to the last speakers of dying tongues, such as RedThundercloud, a Native American in South Carolina, Ned Mandrell, with whom theManx language passed away in 1974, and Arthur Bennett, an Australian, the lastperson to know more than a few words of Mbabaram.In our languages lies the accumulated knowledge of humanity. Indeed, eachlanguage is a unique window on experience. Vanishing Voices is a call topreserve this resource, before it is too late.

Daniel Nettle received his Ph.D. in Anthropology from University College London. He is the author The Fyem Language of Northern Nigeria and Linguistic Diversity (OUP). He lives in London. Suzanne Romaine has been Merton Professor of English Language at the University of Oxford since 1984. She is the author of numerous books, including Language, Education and Development: Urban and Rural Tok Pisin in Papua New Guinea and Language in Society: An Introduction to Sociolinguistics (both by OUP). She lives in Oxford.