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When Languages Die: The Extinction of the World's Languages and the Erosion of Human Knowledge
It is commonly agreed by linguists and anthropologists that the majority of languages spoken now around the globe will likely disappear within our lifetime. The phenomenon known as language death has started to accelerate as the world has grown smaller.
This extinction of languages, and the knowledge therein, has no parallel in human history. K. David Harrison's book is the first to focus on the essential question, what is lost when a language dies? What forms of knowledge are embedded in a language's structure and vocabulary? And how harmful is it to humanity that such knowledge is lost forever?
Harrison spans the globe from Siberia, to North America, to the Himalayas and elsewhere, to look at the human knowledge that is slowly being lost as the languages that express it fade from sight. He uses fascinating anecdotes and portraits of some of these languages' last remaining speakers, in order to demonstrate that this knowledge about ourselves and the world is inherently precious and once gone, will be lost forever. This knowledge is not only our cultural heritage (oral histories, poetry, stories, etc.) but very useful knowledge about plants, animals, the seasons, and other aspects of the natural world--not to mention our understanding of the capacities of the human mind. Harrison's book is a testament not only to the pressing issue of language death, but to the remarkable span of human knowledge and ingenuity. It will fascinate linguists, anthropologists, and general readers.
This extinction of languages, and the knowledge therein, has no parallel in human history. K. David Harrison's book is the first to focus on the essential question, what is lost when a language dies? What forms of knowledge are embedded in a language's structure and vocabulary? And how harmful is it to humanity that such knowledge is lost forever?
Harrison spans the globe from Siberia, to North America, to the Himalayas and elsewhere, to look at the human knowledge that is slowly being lost as the languages that express it fade from sight. He uses fascinating anecdotes and portraits of some of these languages' last remaining speakers, in order to demonstrate that this knowledge about ourselves and the world is inherently precious and once gone, will be lost forever. This knowledge is not only our cultural heritage (oral histories, poetry, stories, etc.) but very useful knowledge about plants, animals, the seasons, and other aspects of the natural world--not to mention our understanding of the capacities of the human mind. Harrison's book is a testament not only to the pressing issue of language death, but to the remarkable span of human knowledge and ingenuity. It will fascinate linguists, anthropologists, and general readers.
304 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2007
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About the author
K. David Harrison
10 books17 followersK. David Harrison is a Canadian-American linguist, anthropologist, author, filmmaker, and activist for the documentation and preservation of endangered languages.
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September 25, 2021
So yes, I do certainly agree with author K. David Harrison when he pretty much categorically claims in When Languages Die: The Extinction of the World's Languages and the Erosion of Human Knowledge that it is both frustrating and equally knowledge and enlightenment eroding (and as such of course also saddening and heartbreaking) that oh so very many of the world’s extant languages are in current danger of becoming extinct, and that there should thus be more of a universal effort made by linguists, by everyone, to protect threatened and vulnerable tongues (particularly in areas like Papua New Guinea, the Amazon, but actually in most areas of the world where there are many different and diverse groups of languages which probably have never had all that many native speakers, and I say native speakers, as indeed, the vast majority of languages in danger of bona fide extinction are in fact orally based, have no written forms, or rather have as yet no written forms).
However, whilst I was reading When Languages Die: The Extinction of the World's Languages and the Erosion of Human Knowledge, I have also had the distinct and very much uncomfortable feeling that K. David Harrison is obviously (and in my opinion rather uncritically and very much emotionally) considering most if not even all language extinctions in especially the more recent past as always or at least for the most part being artificially created and never something that might also at times happen entirely naturally (with language death in When Languages Die: The Extinction of the World's Languages and the Erosion of Human Knowledge mostly described and analysed by the author as being a scenario of conquerors and new settlers deliberately and often with an extremely willful purpose imposing their language on the conquered, as well as of course casting blame on the fact that so-called world languages like Mandarin and English are rapidly and all encompassingly taking over and displacing smaller and less universally popular and present languages and language groups).
And while I actually do think this is likely often to be the truth, in my opinion, one really should not consider the above (and as in my opinion K. David Harrison tends to textually do in When Languages Die: The Extinction of the World's Languages and the Erosion of Human Knowledge) as always and forever being the only way and means of language extinction, that in other words and in my opinion, languages also sometimes cease to exist, that they die due to natural phenomena and due to individuals simply no longer being all that interested in speaking and/or if the threatened tongue also has a written form no longer writing the tongue in question (that sometimes languages just do not have enough of a spread and population base to become universally established, like for example what was the likely fate of the extinct Indo-European language Tocharian, struggling in a huge area of Chinese dialects and how languages also sometimes become extinct because they morph into other languages, like Proto-Indo-European changing into its many daughter tongues and basically after that point no longer existing).
Combined with the fact that for me both personally and academically, When Languages Die: The Extinction of the World's Languages and the Erosion of Human Knowledge shows an anti-writing bias that feels rather ridiculous and short-sighted considering how much written documents (and even basic inscriptions) have benefited in particular historical linguistics (such as for example, even though Proto-Germanic did not have a written form, incorporated loan words into Finnish have allowed linguists to provide reasonable reconstructions that would otherwise have proven much less certain), I really cannot say that I have enjoyed K. David Harrison’s text enough for more than a two star rating (and the only reason for me upping my two stars to three is that I do appreciate the included endnotes and the extensive and delightfully detailed bibliography).
However, whilst I was reading When Languages Die: The Extinction of the World's Languages and the Erosion of Human Knowledge, I have also had the distinct and very much uncomfortable feeling that K. David Harrison is obviously (and in my opinion rather uncritically and very much emotionally) considering most if not even all language extinctions in especially the more recent past as always or at least for the most part being artificially created and never something that might also at times happen entirely naturally (with language death in When Languages Die: The Extinction of the World's Languages and the Erosion of Human Knowledge mostly described and analysed by the author as being a scenario of conquerors and new settlers deliberately and often with an extremely willful purpose imposing their language on the conquered, as well as of course casting blame on the fact that so-called world languages like Mandarin and English are rapidly and all encompassingly taking over and displacing smaller and less universally popular and present languages and language groups).
And while I actually do think this is likely often to be the truth, in my opinion, one really should not consider the above (and as in my opinion K. David Harrison tends to textually do in When Languages Die: The Extinction of the World's Languages and the Erosion of Human Knowledge) as always and forever being the only way and means of language extinction, that in other words and in my opinion, languages also sometimes cease to exist, that they die due to natural phenomena and due to individuals simply no longer being all that interested in speaking and/or if the threatened tongue also has a written form no longer writing the tongue in question (that sometimes languages just do not have enough of a spread and population base to become universally established, like for example what was the likely fate of the extinct Indo-European language Tocharian, struggling in a huge area of Chinese dialects and how languages also sometimes become extinct because they morph into other languages, like Proto-Indo-European changing into its many daughter tongues and basically after that point no longer existing).
Combined with the fact that for me both personally and academically, When Languages Die: The Extinction of the World's Languages and the Erosion of Human Knowledge shows an anti-writing bias that feels rather ridiculous and short-sighted considering how much written documents (and even basic inscriptions) have benefited in particular historical linguistics (such as for example, even though Proto-Germanic did not have a written form, incorporated loan words into Finnish have allowed linguists to provide reasonable reconstructions that would otherwise have proven much less certain), I really cannot say that I have enjoyed K. David Harrison’s text enough for more than a two star rating (and the only reason for me upping my two stars to three is that I do appreciate the included endnotes and the extensive and delightfully detailed bibliography).
August 14, 2014
I certainly did not need to be convinced of the tragedy of language extinction. My problems with this book (among other smaller nit-picky things) are:
1) while the author laments the loss of languages, he says nothing about language preservation, and in fact comes across as quite cynical about revitalization efforts.
2) all of the reasons given for why language loss is a bad thing involve what we, as speakers of global languages, stand to lose from the loss of endangered languages. What about what the speakers of those languages stand to lose?? I guess Dr. Harrison would say that's a sentimental argument and he's a scientist with a capital S, which is why I've always struggled with defining myself as a linguist...
I'm also particularly sensitive to anti-writing snobbery among modern (especially American) linguists. That's just a pet peeve of mine. But it does lead to some head-scratching contradictions (i.e. an entire section titled Writing Is Not Language, followed in the next chapter by the statement "...symbolic media [can] express ideas without language. But language is so much more efficient. That is why we have textbooks in schools rather than teaching biology through the medium of dance, song, and charades..." ...huh? Are you using magical hologram textbooks? Don't most textbook use writing?)
I appreciate Dr. Harrison's work very much and agree with his some of his arguments, but apparently not his end goals nor his reasons for aiming for those goals.
1) while the author laments the loss of languages, he says nothing about language preservation, and in fact comes across as quite cynical about revitalization efforts.
2) all of the reasons given for why language loss is a bad thing involve what we, as speakers of global languages, stand to lose from the loss of endangered languages. What about what the speakers of those languages stand to lose?? I guess Dr. Harrison would say that's a sentimental argument and he's a scientist with a capital S, which is why I've always struggled with defining myself as a linguist...
I'm also particularly sensitive to anti-writing snobbery among modern (especially American) linguists. That's just a pet peeve of mine. But it does lead to some head-scratching contradictions (i.e. an entire section titled Writing Is Not Language, followed in the next chapter by the statement "...symbolic media [can] express ideas without language. But language is so much more efficient. That is why we have textbooks in schools rather than teaching biology through the medium of dance, song, and charades..." ...huh? Are you using magical hologram textbooks? Don't most textbook use writing?)
I appreciate Dr. Harrison's work very much and agree with his some of his arguments, but apparently not his end goals nor his reasons for aiming for those goals.
July 16, 2008
Every two weeks, a language dies. Over the past several years there have been several books written about this sad phenomenon, ranging from popular works such as Mark Abley's SPOKEN HERE: Travels Among Threatened Languages to more academic coverage like VANISHING VOICES: The Extinction of the World's Languages by Daniel Nettle and Suzanne Romaine. K. David Harrison's WHEN LANGUAGES DIE has a universal appeal. The author, a professor of linguistics at Swathmore College, writes in an approachable style that emphasizes the human element of language death, the last speakers of languages who feel great pain at their loss, while giving a rigorous argument for language preservation.
One common point in favor of language preservation is that certain possibilities of human language are found only in small indigenous languages, and were they not attested there, we would not know the human brain could accept such features. Urarina, a language spoken in the Amazon that has OVS word order, is the standard example and is present here. Harrison, however, gives some original arguments. His fieldwork has taken him to several smaller populations of Eastern Europe, Siberia, the Philippines and Mongolia. He has visited populations who maintain a traditional way of life with complex folk techniques. Harrison's first argument for language preservation is that the switch from an indigenous language and its useful terminology for local industry to an outside language creates inefficiency. He observes that older reindeer herders among Siberian peoples speaking their own language are able to express themselves about their duties much more concisely than a younger generation speaking Russian, who must resort to circumlocution. I like this argument. It does not resort to the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis that language determines what you can say, for the younger generation can still speak of the details of reindeer herding, but it sees value in a language that can encode such information more efficiently.
Harrison's second argument for action against language death is that traditional languages pass down useful knowledge through the generations simply by being used, and this knowledge is lost through adopting an outside language. He gives exhaustive coverage of various calendar systems throughout the world, where names for months are tied to the agriculture or hunting cycle. Simply by growing up speaking such a language, a young person is endowed with knowledge of the plant cycle or the breeding habits of local wildlife. He gives examples of Siberian populations who no longer remember details of certain natural phenonmenon because they have lost their traditional calendar and use only the Russian one. While in many cases this is applicable, this argument doesn't hold when local peoples simply cease caring about traditional views of the natural environment. The same forces which encourage language shift, industrialization and urbanization, are those which tend to replace traditional ways of life altogether. When people are living in large blocks of flats in the city, going to work in offices or factories, is the traditional calendar any more meaningful than the new one?
In fact, this ties into one major objection I have to pleas for language preservation as usually formulated. As linguists, we can agree with languages are interesting and worthy of preservation. We might agree that some of what indigenous populations do, such as their agricultural lore, should be preserved. However, I don't see how we must all believe that all indigenous ways of life are worth maintaining. This is especially true with regards to religion. Whatever your spiritual beliefs are, religion is usually an issue of what is right against what is falsehood, and it doesn't make sense to call for relativism. Have some priorities here, people. While less critical of missionary efforts than other books on this subject, even Harrison succumbs to this, writing on page 153 'We should be sensitive to the impending loss of so many more religions and worldviews as languages die.' I would like to make linguistics my life's work, but there's no way I buy that.
The book is lavishly illustrated with photos of the speakers of threatened languages and with various diagrams. The author even includes sign languages alongside spoken languages, which no other work on the subject to my knowledge has done. Of the books I've read on the general phenomenon of language death and the worthiness of language preservation, Harrison's When Languages Die is, while by no means perfect, probably the best.
One common point in favor of language preservation is that certain possibilities of human language are found only in small indigenous languages, and were they not attested there, we would not know the human brain could accept such features. Urarina, a language spoken in the Amazon that has OVS word order, is the standard example and is present here. Harrison, however, gives some original arguments. His fieldwork has taken him to several smaller populations of Eastern Europe, Siberia, the Philippines and Mongolia. He has visited populations who maintain a traditional way of life with complex folk techniques. Harrison's first argument for language preservation is that the switch from an indigenous language and its useful terminology for local industry to an outside language creates inefficiency. He observes that older reindeer herders among Siberian peoples speaking their own language are able to express themselves about their duties much more concisely than a younger generation speaking Russian, who must resort to circumlocution. I like this argument. It does not resort to the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis that language determines what you can say, for the younger generation can still speak of the details of reindeer herding, but it sees value in a language that can encode such information more efficiently.
Harrison's second argument for action against language death is that traditional languages pass down useful knowledge through the generations simply by being used, and this knowledge is lost through adopting an outside language. He gives exhaustive coverage of various calendar systems throughout the world, where names for months are tied to the agriculture or hunting cycle. Simply by growing up speaking such a language, a young person is endowed with knowledge of the plant cycle or the breeding habits of local wildlife. He gives examples of Siberian populations who no longer remember details of certain natural phenonmenon because they have lost their traditional calendar and use only the Russian one. While in many cases this is applicable, this argument doesn't hold when local peoples simply cease caring about traditional views of the natural environment. The same forces which encourage language shift, industrialization and urbanization, are those which tend to replace traditional ways of life altogether. When people are living in large blocks of flats in the city, going to work in offices or factories, is the traditional calendar any more meaningful than the new one?
In fact, this ties into one major objection I have to pleas for language preservation as usually formulated. As linguists, we can agree with languages are interesting and worthy of preservation. We might agree that some of what indigenous populations do, such as their agricultural lore, should be preserved. However, I don't see how we must all believe that all indigenous ways of life are worth maintaining. This is especially true with regards to religion. Whatever your spiritual beliefs are, religion is usually an issue of what is right against what is falsehood, and it doesn't make sense to call for relativism. Have some priorities here, people. While less critical of missionary efforts than other books on this subject, even Harrison succumbs to this, writing on page 153 'We should be sensitive to the impending loss of so many more religions and worldviews as languages die.' I would like to make linguistics my life's work, but there's no way I buy that.
The book is lavishly illustrated with photos of the speakers of threatened languages and with various diagrams. The author even includes sign languages alongside spoken languages, which no other work on the subject to my knowledge has done. Of the books I've read on the general phenomenon of language death and the worthiness of language preservation, Harrison's When Languages Die is, while by no means perfect, probably the best.
February 22, 2012
In this book, the author presents two problems with a common source, but not (in my opinion) a common solution: The loss of traditional language, and the loss of traditional knowledge. However, the author seems to have trouble at times distinguishing the two, and in the end doesn't really offer any solutions.
As an example, the author describes a Siberian reindeer herding group who are giving up their language in favor of Russian. While the author is quite ready to explain in detail how the native language is much better equipped for a life of reindeer herding, he ignores one linguistic truth - that if the speakers themselves felt that having a single noun to cover the concept of a 'two year old male unmated domesticated reindeer' made things easier, they would either bring the old term into Russian, or create a new term in Russian. Since (according to the author) they are not doing this, it speaks to the conclusion that the native speakers see their whole lifestyle as something that is old and useless.
The author also rather ignores that the loss of traditional knowledge and terms is happening in all languages, not just minor ones. If I asked a group of English speakers to bring me a 'Hairy fetlocked flea-bitten grey', how many of them would know that I was asking for a grey horse covered in tiny brown speckles, with large tufts of hair above its hooves?
And while the author spends a large amount of time discussing the languages that are dying, the reader is left with an impression that the author is quite cynical of language preservation efforts. Irish is presented as an odd anomaly, Cornish seems like an aberration, and not much is given on the other efforts.
As an example, the author describes a Siberian reindeer herding group who are giving up their language in favor of Russian. While the author is quite ready to explain in detail how the native language is much better equipped for a life of reindeer herding, he ignores one linguistic truth - that if the speakers themselves felt that having a single noun to cover the concept of a 'two year old male unmated domesticated reindeer' made things easier, they would either bring the old term into Russian, or create a new term in Russian. Since (according to the author) they are not doing this, it speaks to the conclusion that the native speakers see their whole lifestyle as something that is old and useless.
The author also rather ignores that the loss of traditional knowledge and terms is happening in all languages, not just minor ones. If I asked a group of English speakers to bring me a 'Hairy fetlocked flea-bitten grey', how many of them would know that I was asking for a grey horse covered in tiny brown speckles, with large tufts of hair above its hooves?
And while the author spends a large amount of time discussing the languages that are dying, the reader is left with an impression that the author is quite cynical of language preservation efforts. Irish is presented as an odd anomaly, Cornish seems like an aberration, and not much is given on the other efforts.
September 3, 2011
There are approximately 7000 living human languages. Of these, approximately 3500 are spoken by a total of 8 million people, or 0.1% of the world population. Mostly these are tribal people living in isolated villages or on remote islands. As they join the global economy, watch television and listen to the radio, and go to school, they learn the dominant language of their country or province and start speaking it more and their tribal language less. If they move to the city or marry outside the tribe, they communicate with their spouses in the dominant language, and their children do not learn the tribal language. If children do not learn the language, then when their elders die, the language dies with them. Native American and Australian Aboriginal languages are thus being replaced by English, the native languages of Siberia by Russian, and the native languages of Papua New Guinea by Neo-Melanesian Creole English. The science of linguistics will suffer a loss: linguistics tries to understand, what is possible in the grammar of a human language, and what is not, and the vanishing languages sometimes have bizarre grammars, which will be lost if the languages disappear before they are properly documented. Russian has special cardinal numerals for masculine nouns referring to humans ("semero" etc.); the Nivkh language of Sakhalin Island and Amur River valley has special numerals for batches of dried fish (I was reminded of the English shepherds' cardinal numerals for sheep and of British aristocrats quoting prices in 21-shilling guineas instead of plebeian 20-shilling pounds). In American English, a man is likely to say "to piss" and a woman "to pee"; in the Native American language Arapaho, such common words as "hello" and "yes" are different when spoken by a man and by a woman. When a language goes, so does the folk taxonomy of animals and plants embedded in it, its special way of reckoning time and describing the landscape, and the tribal mythology recited in it.
That the loss of a language is bad for linguistics is incontrovertible, but is it necessarily bad for the tribal people themselves? K. David Harrison mentions in passing that his grandfather was a farmer; he is an assistant professor of linguistics, an occupation that is more intellectually stimulating and better paid. He did not follow in his grandfather's footsteps; who is he to ask the tribal people to follow in their grandfathers'? By the virtue of being fluent in English, Harrison has access to virtually all modern science and world literature; fluency in Russian gives you access to almost as much. The Tofalar people of the Irkutsk Province of Russia and the Chulym people of the Tomsk Province of Russia should be free to decide whether to revive their ancestral languages or to continue speaking Russian only; when an American professor visits them and persuades them to do the former, he demands that they make a sacrifice that he does not demand of himself; does he have the right to do it? I don't know if K. David Harrison asks himself these questions, but if he does, this book does not mention it.
Conservative newspaper columnist Thomas Sowell once met some Navajo schoolchildren and their white schoolteacher; the boys were ignorant of something Sowell thought is basic knowledge, and he surmised that this was because the schoolteacher taught what he thought Native American adolescents should learn, as opposed to all American adolescents. The white teacher confirmed that he did "promote Navajo culture as the vital foundation for personal growth" and claimed that this his activities make the boys "learn more about correct living [...] than in Sowell's so-called modern society." If this is not racist condescension, what is it?
That the loss of a language is bad for linguistics is incontrovertible, but is it necessarily bad for the tribal people themselves? K. David Harrison mentions in passing that his grandfather was a farmer; he is an assistant professor of linguistics, an occupation that is more intellectually stimulating and better paid. He did not follow in his grandfather's footsteps; who is he to ask the tribal people to follow in their grandfathers'? By the virtue of being fluent in English, Harrison has access to virtually all modern science and world literature; fluency in Russian gives you access to almost as much. The Tofalar people of the Irkutsk Province of Russia and the Chulym people of the Tomsk Province of Russia should be free to decide whether to revive their ancestral languages or to continue speaking Russian only; when an American professor visits them and persuades them to do the former, he demands that they make a sacrifice that he does not demand of himself; does he have the right to do it? I don't know if K. David Harrison asks himself these questions, but if he does, this book does not mention it.
Conservative newspaper columnist Thomas Sowell once met some Navajo schoolchildren and their white schoolteacher; the boys were ignorant of something Sowell thought is basic knowledge, and he surmised that this was because the schoolteacher taught what he thought Native American adolescents should learn, as opposed to all American adolescents. The white teacher confirmed that he did "promote Navajo culture as the vital foundation for personal growth" and claimed that this his activities make the boys "learn more about correct living [...] than in Sowell's so-called modern society." If this is not racist condescension, what is it?
March 13, 2007
A disappointing book, very repetitive and hectoring - on the one hand, lacks a coherent account of why languages are disappearing or how they might be saved, indeed disavowing any role for academic work in doing so, on the other hand, repeats again and again that languages preserve folk knowledge worth saving - without really showing why that folk knowledge is valuable. (That occasionally, but unpredictably, folk taxonomies of animals might line up with cladistic taxonomies, seems a bit of a stretch.) Instead, read David Crystal's Language Death.
September 23, 2008
Completely interesting. Yes it's a little repetitive, yes it is broken down several different ways to insure accesibilty, but that's part of the point -- Harrison is trying to bring an issue he feels strongly and urgently about to the attention of the world, not just linguists. I found it clear without being pedantic, and thorough without containing too much. My edition had several typos, which was sort of weird. I really enjoyed this book, and if I only lived in New York now I would've gone to see Harrison's free lecture at the public library last night in a heartbeat!
December 17, 2023
que vontade de fazer letras com habilitação em linguística
December 29, 2017
A relatively interesting read about some unusual features of smaller languages or some usual features used in new ways. The author does make a point in that we can lose ever getting a full range of what language is capable of if these languages are to die, something that could have untold effects on how we view cognition and such, but I think in the last chapter or so he went quite overboard with the linguistic relativity, citing Boroditsky, whose work is often criticized, and whose seminal study -- the bridge one -- has, to my knowledge, yet to be published in an academic journal (or at all) 15 years later, and whose other works have slightly flawed methodology that fails to take into account cultural difference, among other things.
That said, still an interesting read.
That said, still an interesting read.
June 7, 2010
Clearly Harrison is very passionate about the subject of dying languages and the loss they represent to our collective knowledge and cultural history. And I agree with the essential fact that losing languages means losing a piece of our understanding about how the human brain can work and adapt to different environments and cultures.
At the same time, Harrison focuses so much on the detrimental aspects of language extinction, that he completely ignores the benefits of shared languages on spreading peace and cultural understanding throughout the globe. If we were all able to speak the same language, even if that language lost some of the efficiency and embedded knowledge of now-dead languages, I think we might gain more than we'd lose by being able to communicate and understand each other better.
At the same time, Harrison focuses so much on the detrimental aspects of language extinction, that he completely ignores the benefits of shared languages on spreading peace and cultural understanding throughout the globe. If we were all able to speak the same language, even if that language lost some of the efficiency and embedded knowledge of now-dead languages, I think we might gain more than we'd lose by being able to communicate and understand each other better.
November 18, 2014
Harrison is passionate about the wealth of undocumented information contained in "small" languages, those with dwindling numbers of fluent speakers. He is less concerned with the linguistic characteristics of the languages than the cultural, biological, topological, temporal and even numerical ways that these languages describe their environment and history. He stresses how unaware we are of the incredible variety of human perspectives because so many languages are undocumented and disappearing. We have no idea what we don't know.
Although I consider the book to be very accessible, the subject matter is rather specialized and most likely to appeal to those readers keenly interested in languages and linguistics. A few examples were difficult to comprehend because they were too complex to be easily summarized, but overall I thought the book was fascinating.
Although I consider the book to be very accessible, the subject matter is rather specialized and most likely to appeal to those readers keenly interested in languages and linguistics. A few examples were difficult to comprehend because they were too complex to be easily summarized, but overall I thought the book was fascinating.
June 30, 2019
A book which can't decide whether to be on comparative linguistics, language appreciation, or tragic tale of dying cultures.
The argument is fairly fascinating:
Language encodes information BEYOND simply the meaning of the words. As in beyond the definition. The author's purpose of writing this book is that a great deal of human knowledge is encoded within dying languages and is therefore in danger of evaporating into the tides of time.
I wouldnt be so opposed to making this a first book one reads on linguistics given the way it talks about language.
This was an enjoyable and highly valuable book. Im glad that I read this.
Recommended for:
Those who find the word "sociolinguistics" cool
The argument is fairly fascinating:
Language encodes information BEYOND simply the meaning of the words. As in beyond the definition. The author's purpose of writing this book is that a great deal of human knowledge is encoded within dying languages and is therefore in danger of evaporating into the tides of time.
I wouldnt be so opposed to making this a first book one reads on linguistics given the way it talks about language.
This was an enjoyable and highly valuable book. Im glad that I read this.
Recommended for:
Those who find the word "sociolinguistics" cool
May 12, 2014
I think the title pretty much said it all. I'm not sure the details of what happens when a language is lost are that interesting or important. Although I am glad someone is taking note and studying the phenomena. Or maybe I only want to be entertained nowadays. The main concept is that a language represents not only a people but a world view which when lost narrows our available choices for knowing reality. CS Lewis explored a similar idea in an article that examined the fewer areas of knowledge and historical wisdom is lost now that England's higher education no longer requires Latin.
June 2, 2015
I can't stop thinking about this book. It is, as my friend Emily Doolittle put it, a book "almost too sad to read," but it is also too urgent NOT to read. When Languages Die is clearly written book about a fabulously complex topic. It is, to oversimplify it, a book that seeks to illustrate the void: explaining what is lost in translation, describing the greatest cultural extinction crisis that humanity has ever faced.
January 7, 2022
Very interesting - and at times very depressing - little book. There's little that was completely new in here, and as it's not interested in the linguistic side of things it appeals more to one's political and social concerns. Yet those are important enough, and Harrison does well in reminding us of what is lost when a language dies, above and beyond the simple act of losing words.
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July 2, 2020When Languages Die
I felt this book was an interesting read because at the Adult Education Center there are a few students who speak multiple languages because one they know is being crowded out, and there are limited people who speak it. I feel like this is happening a lot so I looked back to a book a professor suggested to me in a linguistics course about language extinction. The book was calledWhen Languages Die by David Harrison. He discusses about how linguistics can try to preserve languages in dictionaries, and books, or grammar rules, before they are no longer spoken. But these books are a dim reflection of a language spoken in a native social setting.
There are 6,700 languages, the top ten major languages account for 50% of the population, while the bottom half of 3,350 account for .92% of the population. Languages are going extinct at a rate faster than animals. While one in four mammals, are endangered 40% of languages are facing extinction. I thought about how this might be something that just happens naturally. Languages change all the time the book says that in hunter and gathering days if a tribe split into two and didn’t interact with the other half in eight generations the two tribes may have trouble communicating, and in two hundred years mutual comprehensibility may be lost. I related this to reading something from Shakespeare’s era seems completely different than the language spoken today.
I thought about what complications would play a role in the growth of languages, for example a word that is considered slang now could be in the oxford English dictionary years later. When does a dialect become so different that it splits from Spanish to Portuguese? I could see why things such as the internet would cause a decrease in language growth because people you may have lost contact with, or whose language you would have otherwise forgotten, could still be on display on your facebook newsfeed, or while reading articles on the internet. No matter where you speaking to someone with the language your familiar with is, at most, only one skype call away. But what could be causing the extinction of languages?
“If people feel their knowledge is worth keeping they will do so, if they are told or come to belive it is useless in the modern world, they may well abandon it” (Harrison 17). Over the years people have been told to hide languages that weren’t seen as proper. It has been a result of colonialism and violence against people who spoke a language. Just in Minnesota for example Ojibwe and Dakota languages are in danger of disappearing once the elder generation dies off. How much of this is a result of being forced to go to boarding schools and getting in trouble for speaking their native language? People felt they had to abandon it for survival. This book talks about people who were beaten for speaking a certain language. There are a lot of languages that aren’t written but only spoken, which means they are in more danger of going extinct if people don’t teach the language to their children.
The book then goes into why this matters. “According to Hale: ‘When you lose a language, you lose a culture, an intellectual wealth, a work of art. It’s like dropping a bomb on a museum the Louvre.’” (8). The book discusses two major reasons for the importance of preserving language. For one thing, when you lose a language you lose a representation of the culture who speaks it. Also, there is a lot of information on medicine, species, or ways of thinking and different perspective that are lost. One language that was going extinct had 30 different names for reindeer. Each name would tell you how fertile the reindeer is, the age, the sex, or about the appearance or weight. Another language viewed time completely different than the western timeline. For them they would think of the past as ahead of you because you can see it but the future as behind you because it sneaks up on you. The book then discusses how when scientists discover a new species often times the natives from the area would already have a term for it and be able to tell you the healing properties. There is so much money that could have been saved on research if people could translate or speak to some of these endangered languages. For me it had me thinking what if the cure for cancer has been discovered in a language that has gone extinct, or is endangered?
While relating this to English Language Learners I find it important, for people to communicate in English so they can find a job. But there are just some things that can’t be translated, I think it is someone’s duty in ELL to help a student learn English, but make sure a student is comfortable speaking their own language at home, I think it is important to not tell students that they can’t speak their native language. Especially because they can help their peers learn English quicker, or help each other out. If you tell a student they can’t speak their language you are stripping them of communication, you are like Ursula stealing Ariel’s voice, and you may not even realize it. Learning English isn’t about replacing the communication they know, but about expanding their forms of communication.
I felt this book was an interesting read because at the Adult Education Center there are a few students who speak multiple languages because one they know is being crowded out, and there are limited people who speak it. I feel like this is happening a lot so I looked back to a book a professor suggested to me in a linguistics course about language extinction. The book was calledWhen Languages Die by David Harrison. He discusses about how linguistics can try to preserve languages in dictionaries, and books, or grammar rules, before they are no longer spoken. But these books are a dim reflection of a language spoken in a native social setting.
There are 6,700 languages, the top ten major languages account for 50% of the population, while the bottom half of 3,350 account for .92% of the population. Languages are going extinct at a rate faster than animals. While one in four mammals, are endangered 40% of languages are facing extinction. I thought about how this might be something that just happens naturally. Languages change all the time the book says that in hunter and gathering days if a tribe split into two and didn’t interact with the other half in eight generations the two tribes may have trouble communicating, and in two hundred years mutual comprehensibility may be lost. I related this to reading something from Shakespeare’s era seems completely different than the language spoken today.
I thought about what complications would play a role in the growth of languages, for example a word that is considered slang now could be in the oxford English dictionary years later. When does a dialect become so different that it splits from Spanish to Portuguese? I could see why things such as the internet would cause a decrease in language growth because people you may have lost contact with, or whose language you would have otherwise forgotten, could still be on display on your facebook newsfeed, or while reading articles on the internet. No matter where you speaking to someone with the language your familiar with is, at most, only one skype call away. But what could be causing the extinction of languages?
“If people feel their knowledge is worth keeping they will do so, if they are told or come to belive it is useless in the modern world, they may well abandon it” (Harrison 17). Over the years people have been told to hide languages that weren’t seen as proper. It has been a result of colonialism and violence against people who spoke a language. Just in Minnesota for example Ojibwe and Dakota languages are in danger of disappearing once the elder generation dies off. How much of this is a result of being forced to go to boarding schools and getting in trouble for speaking their native language? People felt they had to abandon it for survival. This book talks about people who were beaten for speaking a certain language. There are a lot of languages that aren’t written but only spoken, which means they are in more danger of going extinct if people don’t teach the language to their children.
The book then goes into why this matters. “According to Hale: ‘When you lose a language, you lose a culture, an intellectual wealth, a work of art. It’s like dropping a bomb on a museum the Louvre.’” (8). The book discusses two major reasons for the importance of preserving language. For one thing, when you lose a language you lose a representation of the culture who speaks it. Also, there is a lot of information on medicine, species, or ways of thinking and different perspective that are lost. One language that was going extinct had 30 different names for reindeer. Each name would tell you how fertile the reindeer is, the age, the sex, or about the appearance or weight. Another language viewed time completely different than the western timeline. For them they would think of the past as ahead of you because you can see it but the future as behind you because it sneaks up on you. The book then discusses how when scientists discover a new species often times the natives from the area would already have a term for it and be able to tell you the healing properties. There is so much money that could have been saved on research if people could translate or speak to some of these endangered languages. For me it had me thinking what if the cure for cancer has been discovered in a language that has gone extinct, or is endangered?
While relating this to English Language Learners I find it important, for people to communicate in English so they can find a job. But there are just some things that can’t be translated, I think it is someone’s duty in ELL to help a student learn English, but make sure a student is comfortable speaking their own language at home, I think it is important to not tell students that they can’t speak their native language. Especially because they can help their peers learn English quicker, or help each other out. If you tell a student they can’t speak their language you are stripping them of communication, you are like Ursula stealing Ariel’s voice, and you may not even realize it. Learning English isn’t about replacing the communication they know, but about expanding their forms of communication.
November 11, 2023
When I first got this book, not being a linguist by training in any way, I was a little intimidated by the idea of reading about language extinction and its impact on knowledge erosion. But it turned out to be the perfect gift (Thank *you*!)
I enjoy studying languages and my journey thus far has certainly taught me that language is both a medium of expressing thought and a tool that shapes it. I'd always liked the quote, "The limits of my language mean the limits of my world.” by Ludwig Wittgenstein. Reading this book, Harrison has had me going back and forth in agreeing and disagreeing with the Wittgenstein. And I guess, in so doing, Harrison's won the battle when it comes to convincing me that we truly don't know enough about languages in order to truly understand those 'limits' and that as languages become extinct, we lose in-roads into gaining that understanding.
Throughout the discovery of the beautiful different ways languages, especially the lesser known endangered ones, are structured and the environments and cultures they were shaped by, I feel an intense desire to not just learn languages but to learn about them.
I am more convinced now that learning how to express and receive, read, write, speak or sign, a language isn't enough. Learning a language should come with learning its history and the culture it lives in.
Harrison's got me also feeling rather guilty at my own lack of effort in preserving my mother tongue for my daughter and here future generations to come. It is sad to think that the unique knowledge that is contained within it would die together with it. This is a situation I must remedy.
I feel so enriched and even more enthusiastic about learning languages than ever before.
I enjoy studying languages and my journey thus far has certainly taught me that language is both a medium of expressing thought and a tool that shapes it. I'd always liked the quote, "The limits of my language mean the limits of my world.” by Ludwig Wittgenstein. Reading this book, Harrison has had me going back and forth in agreeing and disagreeing with the Wittgenstein. And I guess, in so doing, Harrison's won the battle when it comes to convincing me that we truly don't know enough about languages in order to truly understand those 'limits' and that as languages become extinct, we lose in-roads into gaining that understanding.
Throughout the discovery of the beautiful different ways languages, especially the lesser known endangered ones, are structured and the environments and cultures they were shaped by, I feel an intense desire to not just learn languages but to learn about them.
I am more convinced now that learning how to express and receive, read, write, speak or sign, a language isn't enough. Learning a language should come with learning its history and the culture it lives in.
Harrison's got me also feeling rather guilty at my own lack of effort in preserving my mother tongue for my daughter and here future generations to come. It is sad to think that the unique knowledge that is contained within it would die together with it. This is a situation I must remedy.
I feel so enriched and even more enthusiastic about learning languages than ever before.
January 1, 2025
This was a fine book. I came across it from a YouTube Short, as one person mentioned in this book how some people count differently in different languages. But overall, I'm just not sure how much I resonated with the thesis. I'm glad Harrison pointed out the fallacies of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, that a certain language changes the way a person thinks. I've fallen prey to this fallacy before I knew it was a fallacy; it's tempting! But it's just a better argument to say that an idea can be expressed in any language, though perhaps less efficiently.
The intricacies of indigenous languages presented in this book were often interesting, but not necessarily concerning. Yes, it's sad that they aren't being spoken and will soon die out, but it seemed that the best Harrison could muster was that "We do not even know what it is that we stand to lose" when we fail to record dying languages; "can we really be so confident that this lost calendar knowledge would have contributed nothing to our twenty-first-century world?" (159; 92). Absence of evidence, of course, is not evidence of absence.
The hyper-localized words for different reindeer were interesting, but not concerning to lose, and the same for using the moon to tell time. I was most concerned about losing the ability to document this, for future studying and conceptions of what human language is capable of, but not worried about our ability to continue expressing ourselves.
I did find interesting his thoughts on writing being a secondary, and less pure, form of communication than speaking. It's true that languages existed for millennia without being written down, and imagine how fluid and efficient those languages were. Words died out if they weren't used.
The intricacies of indigenous languages presented in this book were often interesting, but not necessarily concerning. Yes, it's sad that they aren't being spoken and will soon die out, but it seemed that the best Harrison could muster was that "We do not even know what it is that we stand to lose" when we fail to record dying languages; "can we really be so confident that this lost calendar knowledge would have contributed nothing to our twenty-first-century world?" (159; 92). Absence of evidence, of course, is not evidence of absence.
The hyper-localized words for different reindeer were interesting, but not concerning to lose, and the same for using the moon to tell time. I was most concerned about losing the ability to document this, for future studying and conceptions of what human language is capable of, but not worried about our ability to continue expressing ourselves.
I did find interesting his thoughts on writing being a secondary, and less pure, form of communication than speaking. It's true that languages existed for millennia without being written down, and imagine how fluid and efficient those languages were. Words died out if they weren't used.
September 15, 2023
I thought this was a good book. It's the first book about languages (and more specifically about languages dying) that I've ever read - it is fair to say I'm wholly ignorant of the topic. I do not give this book five stars because, while interesting, I found it too technical at parts. It's also likely not technical enough to satisfy linguists, putting it in an uncanny valley that may not satisfy anyone. That said, a couple things I found most interesting:
- I thought that the Tuva not using rhymes because of all their suffixes, but instead using alliteration and repetition was a really compelling finding.
- I loved learning about the culture that could tell between the different kinds of bee smells and chase bees back to their hives.
- The culture whose description of the moon is that of a fire with an animal over it was really interesting (e.g. a new moon is a "tapir moon" because it's fully hidden).
- I thought that the Tuva not using rhymes because of all their suffixes, but instead using alliteration and repetition was a really compelling finding.
- I loved learning about the culture that could tell between the different kinds of bee smells and chase bees back to their hives.
- The culture whose description of the moon is that of a fire with an animal over it was really interesting (e.g. a new moon is a "tapir moon" because it's fully hidden).
August 23, 2023
I had high expectations for this book and it was... alright, but not what I had fully expected.
The points made were definitely very interesting and it felt like a very quick read. I enjoyed learning about the "quirks" of endangered languages and niche features they have, and how that represents key aspect of culture etc etc ...
..but it did feel like the author was lacking a point. Not much is said about the preservation of languages or how the death of languages would be impactful apart from losing ultra-specific words or strange word structures.
It was still a worthwhile read but the book did not spark much emotion or interest regarding the subject (not that it was boring, it's just that I stopped caring the minute I put the book down).
The points made were definitely very interesting and it felt like a very quick read. I enjoyed learning about the "quirks" of endangered languages and niche features they have, and how that represents key aspect of culture etc etc ...
..but it did feel like the author was lacking a point. Not much is said about the preservation of languages or how the death of languages would be impactful apart from losing ultra-specific words or strange word structures.
It was still a worthwhile read but the book did not spark much emotion or interest regarding the subject (not that it was boring, it's just that I stopped caring the minute I put the book down).
August 23, 2025
Really enjoyed reading this book. It is said that even the most advanced technologically civilisations can vanish with no trace behind after moving its knowledge to advanced yet fragile systems.
What’s described in this book is sort of this concept. That if we ignore a language we might loose what was accumulated over the years.
Though in a less comfortable form, the knowledge could be strongly attached to the given community through language and tradition.
The book frightened me to make sure I cultivate as much of the knowledge my language posses but also to not be blinded by our technological advancements.
No other book encouraged me more to learn moon phases, other natural periods and old sayings from my native language.
What’s described in this book is sort of this concept. That if we ignore a language we might loose what was accumulated over the years.
Though in a less comfortable form, the knowledge could be strongly attached to the given community through language and tradition.
The book frightened me to make sure I cultivate as much of the knowledge my language posses but also to not be blinded by our technological advancements.
No other book encouraged me more to learn moon phases, other natural periods and old sayings from my native language.
October 21, 2017
"Human population is predicted to level off in this century, likely averting a global overpopulation crisis. This is attributed to the fact that as people become more urbanized, no matter what their economic well-being, they tend to have fewer children. 18 But ongoing global migration to urban centers spells more trouble for small languages. In crowded urban spaces, small languages usually lose the conditions they need for survival. There are cases where a small language can co-exist in a stable balance with big one over a long period of time, but these are rare . 19 Urbanization is growing worldwide, and it will be the death of language diversity."
January 19, 2024
I really enjoyed reading this book. Usually, I'm not a big non-fiction fan, and even less so interested in scientific texts. However, I think Harrison made his research very relatable and more literary than most non-fiction texts do. Perhaps it is the innate humanity intertwined with language, but I felt as though I was reading something directly consequential.
I've always been interested by languages, although I can only speak English. I thought that learning about these new languages, like Os and Tuvan, was extremely interesting. I loved how Harrison considered culture such a huge factor of how language is formed and I thought that it really made the book more interesting overall.
I've always been interested by languages, although I can only speak English. I thought that learning about these new languages, like Os and Tuvan, was extremely interesting. I loved how Harrison considered culture such a huge factor of how language is formed and I thought that it really made the book more interesting overall.
April 17, 2025
Interesting book featuring a lot of fascinating details unique to the small tongues spoken by a communities ranging all the way from thousands to a few people. Sometimes the book is kinda repetitive though, some pages could be removed, considering it’s a nonfiction. I would also appreciate more focus on the language preservation, because the book seems tragic: the industrialisation consumes world’s cultural heritage in a form of languages and we just observe. Though you could say that the existence of the book is an act of preservation itself.
Nevertheless the book worth reading, recommended
Nevertheless the book worth reading, recommended
December 27, 2023
really interesting, full of fun facts, examples, and case studies that functioned as a great introduction to the cultural psychology of languages, and as a warning about loss of language diversity.
I wish it was more cohesive in that the evidence in each chapter pointed to the central point the author is making (that loss of language diversity is detrimental), rather than the author stating this main point multiple times in each chapter. the book could have been shortened considerably if each almost identical sentence making the same point was consolidated into one.
I wish it was more cohesive in that the evidence in each chapter pointed to the central point the author is making (that loss of language diversity is detrimental), rather than the author stating this main point multiple times in each chapter. the book could have been shortened considerably if each almost identical sentence making the same point was consolidated into one.
May 14, 2024
A YouTuber recommended this book, and although it did have some good tidbits, it really felt like it needed an editor to organize the story beats. I found myself losing attention on some topics that went on for pages, and then very curious on some topics only a paragraph long. I found the conclusions a bit...unfounded? As in the author would be passionately sharing his thoughts on a subject, then suddenly a conclusion would appear without a feeling of build up. I think there is some very interesting information here and good graphical explainations, but I couldn't recommend it to others.
September 16, 2024
While the author does a good job explaining himself and the thesis of the book I feel as though it devolves from the thesis that knowledge is lost when a language dies to just listing language features of endangered languages.
While I understand and agree cultural knowledge is lost when a language dies I remain unconvinced that ‘actual’ knowledge is. I even believe the authors co-signing of the statement that any idea can be expressed in any language showcases the issues with the thesis.
I remain open to the idea and will see if any other literature persuades me.
While I understand and agree cultural knowledge is lost when a language dies I remain unconvinced that ‘actual’ knowledge is. I even believe the authors co-signing of the statement that any idea can be expressed in any language showcases the issues with the thesis.
I remain open to the idea and will see if any other literature persuades me.
April 23, 2025
Quite repetitive and (IMO) a bit tone-deaf. It is very sad to lose complex linguistic systems that perfectly capture cultural knowledge, but it is not comparable to the tragic loss of biodiversity and ecosystems - "... documenting endangered languages ... must be viewed as the greatest conservation challenge of our generation". Statements made by the author, while interesting, felt more like personal opinions than arguments.
I will give it another try sometime as the topic is very interesting.
I will give it another try sometime as the topic is very interesting.
October 11, 2023
Excellent and very human overview of dying languages and their rare features. The author has a bias against writing, though, and the book contains some questionable statements relating to this (“the Western canon itself springs from works like the Iliad that could only have emerged in the absence of writing”). I'm nonetheless rating it 5 stars for all the rarely mentioned information that the author dug up.
March 15, 2024
An accessible and interesting summary of unique and rare features found in endangered languages. While I don't agree with the whole of Harrison's thesis - for example, his statements about the special knowledge held by indigenous populations sometimes feel fetishistic - his argument for the preservation of endangered languages is potent. Well worth a read for anyone interested in languages, including non-linguists and amateurs.
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