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There's a little bit of know-it-all Cheers postman Cliff Claven in all of us. So we were intrigued to learn of a little-known fact: Half of the planet's 7,000 languages are headed for extinction over the next century.

That phenomenon, the result of aging populations in regions made remote by terrain or migration, will be put on display on a small scale today, when speakers of 100 or more languages race to translate a speech by linguist K. David Harrison within 72 hours. He'll describe the endangered language problem at PopTech, a three-day conference of leaders in science, business, technology and the arts in Camden, Maine.

The vanishing language trend is "a stunning fact," says Harrison, an associate professor at Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania and author of the 2007 book When Languages Die. "We don’t even know what we're losing."

There are clues: Harrison draws a correlation between the decline in languages and species extinction. About 80 percent of plant and animal species are unclassified, partly because most scientists haven't bothered asking speakers of obscure languages about their environment and history that's been passed down only through oral — not written — traditions, he says. A nascent field, ethnobotany, addresses that problem by studying the relationship between people and plants.

"There are deep interconnections between ecosystems in collapse and climate change and languages in collapse," he says. "Knowledge about species resides in small languages, and it's knowledge science doesn’t have yet."

(Map of regions with high numbers of languages in danger of dying out, courtesy of Living Tongues Institute for Endangered Languages)

3 Comments

1. 1. ZenaV 08:30 PM 10/23/08

   Hmmm....and I should care....why? Because of some plants that might let some scientist rename them someday? Won't it help business that does global business to have one unifying language? Won't it help bring everyone to an equal playing field? Or are you frightened that they might once again build a tower of Babel? Which, btw; I don't put past them.

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2. 2. GregDC 08:57 AM 10/24/08

   I hear this a lot - "Why should I care" I can tell you why I care -- when a language dies the history of that people die. When the history of a people die, the knowledge of that culture dies. When the knowledge of culture dies, the culture itself dies. When the culture of a people dies the richness of the whole planet is diminished. I care about that.
   
   As to the point of "isn't it better if we all spoke one language" Well if the USA was a little less "mono-langual" in attitude, we (including me) would be learning to speak more than just our one english language. And then that question would be mote. And maybe the Americans in the USA would really enjoy the culture, knowledge, history, and lanuage of the other people we share this planet with.
   
   Something to think about, IMHO
   

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3. 3. donjud in reply to GregDC 02:25 PM 10/24/08

   Greg,
   
   I did not know that the U.S. was "mono-langual" in attitude. Many stores have signs in English and Spanish. Voter information is in both languages. Politicians make speeches in both languages. French is spoken somewhat in Louisiana. Almost any store in the Southwestern U.S. can find someone who speaks Spanish to assist customers. On the other hand, I've traveled extensively to Spain, Mexico, Costa Rica and France. Trying to find someone who speaks English can be very difficult. It's much easier in the tourist areas. But get off the beaten path and you are often limited to struggling. Fortunately, I speak limited Spanish so I can get through many countries. But If you don't speak the local language in other countries many people get insulted.

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