Endangered Languages: History, Policy, and Sustainability

(3 Credit Hours) · Undergraduate

As we move deeper into the 21st century the global community faces mass language extinction. While languages have always changed, died, and been born, the scale of the contemporary threat is unprecedented. The Endangered Languages Project estimates that more than 40% of the world's 7,000 languages are in danger of disappearing. As it becomes increasingly clear that language rights are closely connected to other human rights, and that indigenous languages in particular hold traditional environmental knowledge crucial for the creation of a sustainable future, the fate of these languages has become a matter of global concern. In 2019 the UN declared a year of Indigenous Languages and in 2022 kicked off IDIL, the International Decade for Indigenous Languages. Partly because of these new collaborations, the story of endangered languages is not all doom and gloom. In this class we will explore the past, present, and future of endangered languages, with cases drawn in particular from Ireland, New Zealand/Maori, Bangladesh, Africa, and the Indigenous communities of the South Bend region. We will ask what languages do and what is lost when they disappear; why some languages become endangered and others do not; and what contemporary realities speakers and learners of such languages face as they seek schooling, entertainment, self-expression, and community in their language. Most importantly, we will also consider the reasons for language optimism by learning about the ways many endangered languages--even those once thought "dead"--are being revived by dedicated communities of language activists, often working in collaboration with each other. Over the course of the semester, students will choose an endangered language and create a policy paper for the government(s) and communities responsible for that language laying out the language’s history, present conditions, and future needs; the class will include multiple rounds of revision and workshopping of this policy paper. The course culminates with an event in which students put a poster version of their paper on display.