Daily Lesson from Life 08 March 2009

"Sunday 08 March 2009 The Straits Times

One generation - that's all it takes 'for a language to die'

LANGUAGE experts estimate that about half of the 6,500 known languages currently in use worldwide will be extinct by 2050.

Nanyang Technological University (NTU) held a two-day Language and Diversity Symposium to promote the preservation of dying languages of the world.


The event, which was launched Thursday, was hosted by NTU's Centre for Liberal Arts and Social Sciences and Division of Linguistics and Multilingual Studies.

Dr Ng Bee Chin, acting head of the division, said: 'Although Singaporeans are still multilingual, 40 years ago, we were even more multilingual. Young children are not speaking some of these languages at all any more.'


'All it takes is one generation for a language to die,' she added.

While many languages are in danger of dying, there is still hope that efforts can be made to preserve existent languages, and to create new ones. In line with the symposium was the premiere of an art installation piece named Singapore's Voices, a marrying of linguistics, art and technology to make language a tangible item through photographs and sound.

The piece features interactive images of speakers whose languages are becoming obsolete here, such as the Chinese dialects Hakka and Teochew and the Indian languages of Malayalam and Telugu.


Professor Li Wei from the University of London, an active researcher in the field of bilingualism, said: 'One way to promote and protect linguistics is to allow contact among different cultures and people. New languages are created through such contact.' "

Something different to comment on. Something cultural. Something close to us. Language! Or the extinction of languages in one-generation, to be precise!!

Singapore used to be more multi-lingual for sure. However, that is if we count dialects as language. I speak Hokkien, Teochew, Cantonese, besides Mandarin and English (or Singlish!) while our kids are mainly fluent in Mandarin and English only.

Lessons for me are:

1. when we make social engineering decision like: focus on the mother tongue and the English language for nation building and efficiency purposes 3 or 4 decades ago, we should realize this will be the result or consequence. Yes, the nation has prosper due to our people's bi-lingual ability with English being the common language. It also help in achieving racial harmony or communication between the Chinese, the Malay, and the Indian;

2. while it is lamentable from a academics and/or cultural perspective, the practical value of keeping languages that are no longer widely spoken can only be left to the passionate folks. This is the price a commercialized and developed urban society has to pay! Having said that, it is good that wealthy folks from this society forked out money to fund the study of the dying languages and hopefully can keep them alive for history and cultural purposes!;

3. it is important to note that even if some languages will be lost in another generation time, the values will not be lost as universal value of respect for human being should survived such losses.

My best wishes to those who dedicate themselves to saving the dying languages. As for the creation of NEW languages through cross-cultural contacts, I think it is very optimistic. In any case, we have new language of 'internet chat room' with new words and spelling that are unique to the users and the on-line community! Happy reading and writing though not speaking!!