Did you know that there are 6000 languages currently spoken around the world? Well, apparently that number is getting smaller by the minute. Here are some pretty interesting stats about the death of language from Michael Krauss at the University of Alaska Fairbanks:
- There were 300 indigenous languages in the US when it was formed. Currently, there are only about 180 and only 10 percent of those languages are spoken by children.
- California had 60 languages when it was founded but there are only 30 spoken now -- and that's by what Krauss calls "very elderly people."
- By the end of the century 50 percent of the world's 6000 languages could be extinct and by the end of the next century all but 5 percent could be gone. The remaining languages? They will only be those supported by state governments, like English, Arabic, and Spanish.
So what's the meaning of this rapid decline in diversification of speech? Krauss says: "Mass media and TV. Or, as I like to call it, cultural nerve gas."
But here's my question: is this really a bad thing? I guess that comes down to the constantly repeated question of whether or not globalization is good for the world. Fankly, Krauss did concede that Noam Chomsky was likely right when he said that aliens landing on our planet would say we all speak the same language with slight variations. I guess it's only a matter of time before we are considered, simply, earthlings.
