February 26, 2004. Copyright, 2004, Graphic News. All rights reserved

Many languages facing extinction
By Joanna Griffin

LONDON, February 26, Graphic News:  The writing is on the wall for many of the worldÕs estimated 6,000 languages, which are doomed to die out as a result of advances in technology and sweeping demographic change.

According to a report in the journal Science, the 20th century population explosion in less developed countries is one reason for the shuffle in the linguistic hierarchy. While Chinese is likely to remain at the top of the pile, languages such as Tamil, Bengali and Malay are already growing rapidly. Arabic, too, is rising quickly through the ranks of the linguistic world order.

The outlook is not so good for less common languages, which may be disappearing at the rate of one a day. Even English -- so long untouchable as world number one -- will decline: by 2050 it will be spoken as a first language by just five percent of people. But it will still reign as the second language in a multilingual world where the notion of Ònative speakerÓ no longer matters.

But even as indigenous and rural languages die out and the ÒbigÓ ones become destandardised through new technology and publishing practices, new forms of language will emerge in cities where different ethnic groups coexist. Such hybrids may help to maintain diversity in a global community where the social networks that languages construct are less tied to place.

To keep pace with change, linguists have switched their focus from scrutinising vocabulary and syntax to using Òdata-miningÓ techniques to analyse real world text and conversations. Like the rest of us, they face a struggle to make sense of the free floating, fragmentary information that increasingly characterises the postmodern world.
/ENDS