Human Languages at Risk of Extinction: Economic Success May be Killing Our Words

Could languages be going extinct? It seems that that's the case, according to new research. Scientists have found that thriving economies are the biggest factor in the disappearance of minority languages and that conservation should focus on the most developed countries where languages are disappearing the fastest.

In order to measure language loss, the researchers actually used the criteria for defining endangered species as defined by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. Three major components of this are: small population size, small geographical habitat range and population change. Then, the scientists interrogated huge language datasets using these conservation mechanisms.

"As economies develop, one language often comes to dominate a nation's political and educational spheres," said Tatsuya Amato, one of the researchers, in a news release. "People are forced to adopt the dominant language or risked being left out in the cold-economically and politically. Of course, everyone has the right to choose the language they speak, but preserving dying language is important to maintaining human cultural diversity in an increasingly globalized world."

So what did they find? In the northwest corner of North America, languages of indigenous people are disappearing at alarming rates. Upper Tanana, a language spoken by indigenous Athabaskan people in eastern Alaska, had just 24 active speakers in 2009 and was no longer being used by children. The Wichita language of the Plains Indians had just one fluent speaker in 2008.

"As economies develop, there is increasing advantage in learning international languages such as English, but people can still speak their historically traditional languages," said Amano. "Encouraging those bilingualisms will be critical to preserving linguistic diversity."

In fact, it's likely that these languages can be saved if people become bilingual. That said, the findings also reveal how quickly language is disappearing and how globalization is playing a large role in that regard.

The findings are published in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B.