What happens when we lose a language?

"We are lucky to know anything at all about the Ubykh language. In the 1800s, tens of thousands of people spoke it on the Black Sea coast. When Russia conquered the region, the Ubykhs resisted until they were forced into exile in the Ottoman empire. Transported thousands of miles by a traumatised community now scattered across Turkey, Ubykh survived until 1992 when its last fluent speaker died."

"It was one of at least 244 languages that has become extinct since 1950, and soon unless anything changes my grandmother's language will have joined them. Over the next 40 years, language loss has been predicted to triple without intervention. Yet we hear about language endangerment far less often than we hear about other wounding losses to our planet's diversity or history."

"International archaeologists rallied to preserve and restore ancient remains in Syria following the destruction wreaked by Islamic State. But the efforts of those labouring to document or preserve minority languages are rarely celebrated. The databases that do exist, such as Ethnologue, chart unfathomable cultural riches contained within more than 7,000 known living languages. But a staggering 44% of these are now classed endangered, many of them with fewer than 1,000 speakers left."

"One-nation-one-language narratives lull us into assuming France speaks French, China speaks Mandarin; this ignores the tens and even hundreds of regional languages, many of whose speakers have experienced everything from active persecution to bans in school to simply feeling stigmatised for speaking their mother tongue. Some communities are lucky enough to have the political or cultural autonomy to protect their languages think of Welsh or Maori but many aren't so fortunate."

Ubykh was spoken by tens of thousands on the Black Sea coast in the 1800s. After Russia conquered the region, Ubykhs resisted and were forced into exile in the Ottoman empire, scattering across Turkey. The language survived until 1992, when the last fluent speaker died. Since 1950, at least 244 languages have become extinct, and language loss is predicted to triple over the next 40 years without intervention. Language endangerment receives less attention than deforestation or archaeological destruction. Ethnologue lists more than 7,000 living languages, with 44% classed as endangered, many with fewer than 1,000 speakers. One-nation-one-language assumptions ignore regional languages affected by persecution, school bans, and stigma. Some communities gain autonomy to protect languages, while others experience resignation to decline.

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