The reason the consequence of Language disappearing

Language are the ways by which people to seek explain the world they live in, and a communication way to understand each other. What would happen if the language which we speak every day since our first talk disappears? Could you imagine that we live in a silently world instead of talking to each others and share our feeling excitedly? It could be a difficult world to live, we try our best to express, but there is not a powerful tool like language does, maybe we will get used to that, but at present, it is too hard for us to give up the powerful tool. However, more than half of all languages in the world are in danger of disappearing according to the estimation of the experts. The young generation give up to inherit the traditional language pouring into city to learn modern language and even some governments suppress the native language. Maybe the consequence is not that we do not communicate with each other, but in a world spread language, like English or Chinese, the consequence is that with the disappearing of a language, the culture that it stands and much of the knowledge of the native community may lost with it. Such as information about the natural world will lost when language disappearing. Language disappearing is a tough problem we need to face and solve.

There are two reasons that a language is disappearing. In modern world, because of the fast speed urbanization, many young people pour into the city, leaving the old who speak native language at home or they just refuse to speak native language, which cause the disappearing of language.“Younger people leave their native communities to get jobs in cities where they use only the language of the majority. Wars, floods, lack of rain, or loss of land to development can force members of a communities to leave their traditional homelands.”(1) here we can see there pursue of the modern society, better lives lead the young generation do not inherit the language.  “The welsh language is dying out as young people are afraid to use it, research has found，one half of 16-24 year-olds consider themselves fluent, compared with two-thirds over 60s, and only a third of the younger generation use welsh with their friends.”(2)Young people’s not often use of the language definitely cause the continue of the native language gradually.

Additionally, some government policies also lead to the disappearing of the language. “During the last century, government suppression of native languages was common around the world, including the United States...It said American Indian children should be taken from their homes and sent to live in government boarding schools where they would speak only English.”(1) At that time, American Indian children were sent to boarding school where only English was allowed. For fifty years, thousands of Native American children were sent to these schools to live, work and be educated in English. By the late nineteen thirties, many of the schools had closed. But their effects on American Indian languages continued. like Mrs Andrew says“When I was at school we were not allowed to speak Cook Islands Maori, as soon as we hit the school grounds we were punished for speaking it.”(3)It is obvious that those two major factors contribute a lot to disappearing language.

The disappearing of language not just means a kind of communication ways between certain group, it means the disappearing of certain culture, some of which are valuable to human history, such as some information about natural world, some plants which can heal hurts."Every time a language disappears that means the whole cultural knowledge of that people disappears. For example all of their traditional medical knowledge, all of their traditional historical knowledge, all of their family history, everything can disappear with the language if the community is not careful.”(4)“Many are afraid this represents not only the loss of a dialect, but also the loss of the local culture，The variety of dialects in China are important culture relics and should be preserved. If Shanghai dialect becomes extinct one day, Shanghai will lose its special character.” (5)Therefore, as you can see, these loss of language with the death of the old generation and young people’s unwilling to inherit the language is serious problem. Nowadays, with more and more people’s realization of language protection, lots of efforts have been done. "One elderly Inughuit tells me this is our last chance: 'We inherited our language from our ancestors. If we lose it without record, future generations will know nothing about their rich past.'"(6)

Generally, the two major reasons I mentioned above lead to the disappearing of language. Young generation is unwilling to speak the native language, the language will disappear with the death of the old when there is not suitable protection measures about the endangered language. In modern society, when English becomes the most popular language in the world, it seems there is a trend that people give up their own dialects, turn to languages which are more widely used to make themselves more competitive or suitable to the modern society. Government policies which limit the use of native language seem to work. Thus the culture which are involved in a language will disappear at the same time, let alone those valuable heritages or information. Luckily, more and more people have realized that the endangered language should be protected, more and more institutions are built and more experts are dedicating themselves to language protection.

Reference
(1)Marilyn Christiano .More Than Half of All Languages in the World Are in Danger of Disappearing. Retrieved on 19th November ,2014 from:http://wenku.baidu.com/link?url=0AC8fq9W2_PfUnVfSCW5H6jjBZcu5VXLzbcvhFOd7yeS2aZTDWhSxi2SGSVNSUUzevqPmi2AFYOr93-GGEMUlXQg4QgmV_0MR_ZApjfOal_
(2)Hayley Dixon.Welsh language is dying out, research finds.Retrieved on 19th November ,2014 from:http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/wales/10236221/Welsh-language-is-dying-out-research-finds.html
(3)Anne Cornish.Cook Islands language disappearing.Retrieved on 19th November ,2014 from:http://www.newswire.co.nz/2009/01/cook-islands/
(4)N.d.Chinese Minority Languages in Danger of Disappearing. Retrieved on 19th November ,2014 from:http://www.way2english.com/c18852.html
(5)N.d.Shanghai struggles to save disappearing language.Retrieved on 19th November ,2014 from:http://travel.cnn.com/shanghai/life/you-think-youre-speaking-shanghainese-not-so-fast-666815
(6)Thair Shaikh.Scientist lives with endangered tribe to save disappearing language. Retrieved on 19th November ,2014 from:http://edition.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/europe/11/04/inuit.eskimos.greenland.language/


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