Language Death In Language

Annie C. Patacsil October, 2016
MALT

Language Death
Have you experienced the feeling of being loved? Making you believe that you’re the most important person despite the beautiful or handsome faces around you. Then after sometimes, you will just wake up, realizing that you are now replaced – set aside – and slowly forgotten the person you once loved. Until one day no one knows that you even existed. This is what happens to a language when it dies. Language is defined in many ways. One simple definition of it is a tool used in communication. However, the use and importance of a language do not end there. Language is more than a tool for communication. It covers many things beyond what we can imagine. In this modern

Language extinction, linguistic extinction or linguicide, these are the terms that can also refer to language death. Language death occurs when a language loses its last native speaker. According to Crystal (2003), “a language dies when nobody speaks it anymore.” Holmes (1992) also added his idea that “when all the people who speak a language die, the language dies with them.” In short, the life of the language depends on its speakers. One example of a language death is the case of Dorothy Pentreath. Dolly Pentreath was known as “Dolly” is the most well-known of the last fluent, native speaker of the Cornish language. She is a saleswoman and a fortune teller who died at the age of 82. The date of her death is December 26, 1777. Since she is the only last living person who speaks fluently the Cornish language, on December 27, 1777, the Cornish language is considered a dead language. It is really sad to know that a language needs to die. If you live in that moment would you do something to save the

There are five common reasons of language death. First is natural or environmental. This is the decline or loss of population due to natural catastrophes (volcanic eruption, earthquake, droughts, floods and famine) diseases, (sexually transmitted disease, smallpox, measles, influenza, common cold, leprosy, malaria) and violent acts by humans (warfare, slavery, massacres, and genocide). Second is the political or military which is the dispossession of the land due to invasion, conquest, colonization. Third is social that includes mixing of speakers of different languages; improved communication and mass media in the dominant language; and indifferent attitude. The fourth is the Language Policy. This is the imposition of the dominant language where the prohibition of the use of the indigenous language in education, punishment, and humiliation for the use of indigenous language are done. The last one is linguistic. This is the relative lack of indigenous language literature. It also includes “language purism” where some people may choose to retain their language in its “pure