Ladefoged and endangered languages
For a long time I have been worried by some of Peter Ladefoged’s remarks on endangered languages which have been widely quoted in the literature of the last 15 years. The most noteworthy is his anecdote of talking with a Dahalo speaker who is proud that his sons have been to school and claims, smiling, that they speak only Swahili. Ladefoged ends by saying Who am I to say that he was wrong.
I’ve come up with a few reasons why Ladefoged should say the man was mistaken, but I was unsure if they held water and so was reluctant to voice them.
One of my recent acquisitions from the free book table at my department is an issue of Language, Vol. 69 No. 3 (September 1993). In it is a response to Ladefoged from Nancy Dorian, one of the most illustrious fieldworkers of the 20th century. Dorian gives a few of the same criticisms that I thought were evident. For example, I’ve seen that inhabitants of a region with a dying language who did not get the opportunity to learn it often regret it. Dorian writes:
The Gaelic-speaking East Sutherland fisherfolk have in one sense already been proven ‘wrong’, in that some of the youngest members of their own kin circles have begun to berate them for choosing not to transmit the ancestral language and so allowing it to die.
Third-generation pursuit of an ancestral language is a phenomenon with a fairly obvious social bias. The generation who do not transmit an ethnic language are usually actively in search of a social betterment that they believe they can only achieve by abandoning, among other identifying behaviors, a stigmatizing language. The first generation secure as to social position is often also the first generation to yearn after the lost language, which by their time is no longer regarded as particularly stigmatizing. Some of these descendents see an ethnolinguistic heritage which eluded them and react to their loss, sadly or even resentfully. This is so widespread and recurrent a response to ancestral-language loss as to be something of a cliché among immigrant-descended groups. In other populations, rising consciousness of cultural loss resulting from a colonial past or other historically disfavoring circumstances produces similar results among modern-day descendents.
In other words, stigma is temporary, but since a lost language cannot be brought back, in the long run it looks like an unwise tradeoff.
But Dorian doesn’t get to the heart of the problem that I see, namely that people who believe that they must give up a language to move ahead are thinking foolishly. Certainly speakers of minority language can receive derision from speakers of the majority language and from other minority members who are giving up the language thinking that they can better fit it. But in all but the most politically extreme cases (where what is attacked is often publishing activities, not speaking), is that mocking really all that worse than the ribbing I got in high school for my bookishness or love of obscure music? In other words, might not ‘suck it up’ be a perfectly appropriate suggestion? In my opinion, linguists who do not clearly communicate this fact to the natives they work with are guilty of perpetuating old myths that bilingualism it iself is somehow harmful to a child’s development.
May 5th, 2009 at 19:50
Well, yes. But that’s a dangerous word – “temporary”. Last time someone uttered it in my neck of the woods, it turned out to equal 23 years and that’s a whole lot of time. A third of a lifetime in lucky places, a half of one in less fortunate ones. And that’s assuming things actually do get better which, in some parts of the world, they don’t seem to.
Oh if it only were mocking! And even if we discount cases of obvious abuse (such as beating children who’ve been caught speaking their native language or washing their mouths with soap), a linguistic stigma often translates into social stigma and that can have negative impact not only on the emotional well-being, but also the very survival of the individual. Children everywhere critize the choices of their parents, but honestly, how would they chose if they – God forbid – found themselves in their parents’ place?
As a fat bookish kid who got bullied a lot, I’ve always hated that advice and felt that a well-placed punch, preferrably delivered by my parents or teachers, would be the best solution. Same principle can and should be applied to minority/endangered language communities – governments must fight all discrimination and ensure equality regardless of what language one speaks. But let’s face it – most governments in those parts of the world with most endangered languages are having a hard enough time making sure people don’t starve. And I’m talking about governments which actually give a damn about their people. Lord knows there’s not too many of those around.
As much as I sympathize with your point, I’m with Ladefoged on this one. Except what I think Ladefoged meant was “Who am I, a rich educated white man who’s never had to worry about where his next meal is coming from, to say to this dirt-poor Dahalo man that he’s made the wrong choice for himself and his children?”
May 5th, 2009 at 20:03
I see two issues here: first there’s the myth of bilingualism being detrimental. I’m 100% with you — that one should be fought tooth and nail. I’m lucky in that my own community has embraced bilingualism and all its social and political implications. But I don’t the social stigma that leads to language death derives from speaking two languages. It’s speaking a particular language that’s the problem.
The second issue involves the role of the linguist. No matter how much time you spend in the particular community, you will always be an outsider. As such, do you – and should you – get a say in the decisions the community makes?
May 9th, 2009 at 20:54
Dahalo is not a typical example, because it’s chock full of very rare features that would be, on a global scale, a real pity to lose.
On its own, “suck it up” is never good advice, but the key here (and, I suppose, all an outsider can safely offer) is information: the information that bilingualism is entirely feasible, that languages don’t come back once lost, and the like.
May 12th, 2009 at 16:55
David, please don’t link to Wikipedia here. Thanks.
May 14th, 2009 at 20:49
The paper by Ladefoged (last of 4 authors) on the phonetics of Dahalo (pdf, 11.7 MB).
May 21st, 2009 at 19:45
You’re basically saying we have to be held captive to future generations in all things, because opinions will change later. We have to make sure we don’t change at all, so that when opinions change, things can still be the same as they were yesterday. except that those future people won’t be able to change either, because there will still be future people for the future people to have to not change for.
New languages will come along in time. Maybe they will have some interesting phenomenon that wouldn’t've come around if Gaelic hadn’t've died, because the society would’ve been a bit different. The future depends on the present, but that doesn’t mean we can’t exercise our free will today.
(This is a slightly edited version of something I said to someone via an i.m., so it might not be entirely coherent.)