<
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/jan/16/linguists-language-culture-loss-end-of-century-sea-levels-rise>
"Every 40 days a language dies. This “catastrophic” loss is being amplified by
the climate crisis, according to linguists. If nothing is done, conservative
estimates suggest that half of all the 7,000 languages currently spoken will be
extinct by the end of the century.
Speakers of minority languages have experienced a long history of persecution,
with the result that by the 1920s half of all Indigenous languages in
Australia, the US, South Africa and Argentina were extinct. The climate crisis
is now considered the “final nail in the coffin” for many Indigenous languages
and with them, the knowledge they represent.
“Languages are already vulnerable and endangered,” says Anastasia Riehl, the
director of the Strathy language unit at Queen’s University in Kingston,
Ontario. Huge factors are globalisation and migration, as communities move to
regions where their language is not spoken or valued, according to Riehl.
“It seems particularly cruel,” she says, that most of the world’s languages are
in parts of the world that are growing inhospitable to people.
Vanuatu, a South Pacific island nation measuring 12,189 sq km (4,706 sq miles),
has 110 languages, one for each 111 sq km, the highest density of languages on
the planet. It is also one of the countries most at risk of sea level rise, she
says."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
