Are Languages Dying?

Just as animal species go extinct, it is found that languages too are disappearing, at an unprecedented rate of late. This is perhaps to be expected because everything is speeding up. However, how would you like it if 3,000 out of 6,000 tongues spoken on earth disappear by say 2100AD?

In fact it is said that there were 300 million speakers of the Russian language in 1990, just before USSR disintegrated. By 2025 this is estimated to come down to 150 million…. Just ten years from now. Knowing Russian was an asset in all of Central Asia but not anymore!

What is more worrying is, history is embedded in these spoken and written words. Alex Haley speaks about griots in ROOTS: It is said that, "when a griot dies, a library has burned to the ground." A griot is a West African historian, storyteller, praise singer, poet and/or musician. He is a repository of oral tradition, just as there are similar roles in other cultures. And much of history had been passed down orally for a long time.

Language, culture, history – all these hold in them secrets for survival of humankind, because generations in the past did not feel as threatened as we do about survival, despite the fact that much ground was still uncovered as far as scientific advances went. Are we neglecting them at our own expense or that of our children?