Speaking to a standing-room only audience in the Rockefeller Center for the Social Sciences, University of Alaska Professor Michael Krauss said more than half of spoken languages in the world today are close to extinction,
Krauss' speech on Friday was the keynote address for a weekend-long seminar called "Endangered Languages: Current Issues and Future Prospects," which brought scholars together from across the country to discuss the future of languages.
Krauss said only about five percent of birds are endangered, but about "40 to 75 percent of mankind's languages are endangered."
Also, human languages are declining even while human population is booming, he said.
Krauss gave several reasons why languages and their dialects are on the decline.
He said in communities where languages are fading out, about 39 percent of language is sustained by a group of elders and about 33 percent of the language speakers are only a handful of people.
The diversification of dialects may be declining because of technological advances. Krauss said in the near future, probably every Eskimo in the Arctic would have a beeper.
Letting a language disappear could cause a lack of understanding of different cultures and societies and their understanding of knowledge and the human experience, he said.
He said we should document languages and promote the restoration of languages in schools.
"The future of a language is in its transition from parent to child," he said.
He also suggested individuals should be multilingual, noting that in earlier times, people were more open to learning other languages.
The conference was organized by Russian Professor Lenore Grenoble and Linguistics and Classics Professor Lindsay Whaley.
"The plight of these languages is painfully clear to the linguistic community, but beyond scholars, not many people are aware of the situation," Grenoble said in a press release.
There were discussions Saturday and Sunday moderated by Dartmouth professors about the future of Native America, Alaskan/Siberian and African languages.
"The conference was definitely a success," Whaley said. "We strove to deepen scholarship, increase public awareness and provide a network for participants and I think all of those things were accomplished."
