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Language Maintance

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Submitted By mlesetla
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Language endangerment should be a concern for everyone in our society. We need to take an active role to ensure proper elevation to stop any further language deaths.
One would ask what do mean when we say a language is endangered. It is when its speakers cease to use it, use it in fewer and fewer domains, use fewer of its registers and speaking styles, and/or stop passing it on to the next generation. The truth is there is no single factor that determines whether a language is endangered, but there are many of them, the list could go on. I think the important question should be what is the role that we allow our languages to occupy in our society? Are we content that our children can understand our languages but cannot speak it?
Why should be of concern to us and what exactly should we do as speakers to ensure that these languages do not just end up being the language to honor our ancestor like in India as stated by Ladefoged (1994) that “many of the younger people want to honor their ancestors, but also to be part of a modern India bearing the cost of giving up their langue in their daily life”? It should be a great concern for a number of reasons. One, every language reflects a unique world-view with its own value systems, philosophy and particular cultural features. The extinction of a language results in the irrecoverable loss of unique cultural knowledge embodied in it for centuries, including historical, spiritual and ecological knowledge that may be essential for the survival of not only its speakers, but also countless others.
For speaker communities, languages are the creations and the vectors of tradition. They support cultural identity and are an essential part of a community’s heritage. Besides the cultural identity, historical and ecological knowledge, I think it is important that the speakers of each and every language take the maintenance and the revitalization of our indigenous languages seriously not just because of ‘identity’ only because identities are not fixed entities so as our cultures. As SALSA (1993:104) nicely argues that “culture and language are not things, but ways of thinking and doing. Further seals the argument by hitting the nail of the head when he says “things can be therefore simply be lost or replaced over time, while ways are actively shaped, reshaped, reshaped and remade by their human practitioners”.
As speakers we must ensure that our languages are not just languages “to function as an everyday vernacular for all some community members, or sonly serve in sacred ritual” (p105). I believe that if languages must not just be given an ‘official status’ on paper but rather must be used for business, political and technical discourse, languages will stand a very high chance to be respected and taken seriously. If the language is used as a tool for upward social and economic mobility in our societies, people will change the attitudes towards their languages. When I collected data for my Masters thesis, measuring the attitudes of Zulu speakers towards IsiZulu, the main point that stood out amongst all was that: (a) they were not interested in studying the content subjects in IsiZulu because IsiZulu is not the business language but rather they showed positive attitude towards English because it is the language of business and (b) IsiZulu was just a language of communicating with their siblings and family members. The truth is who would want to learn a language that will be of no important use to her or him besides honoring the ancestors and communicating with their siblings? The speakers argued that they already know the language and use it at home. What should be done? That is why I urge native speakers of Indigenous languages to take an active role to ensure that that our language does not just remain as languages for rituals and communication among members only. It is our job as native speakers to ensure that government provide financial support for material development, create job market, and that these languages also become the language of used in business, by government and private sectors. In that way, the indigenous languages will surely end up enjoying the supremacy as English does around the world. Situations as stated by Ladefoged (1992) when he was working in Rural district of Kenya on Dahalo language, when he asked the consultant whether his teen aged sons spoke Dahalo, s/he responded “No, they can still hear it but they cannot speak it, they speak only Swahili (Smiling)”. If we speakers ensure that our languages can be used to gain money, position and power that way we can able to move up the social and economic ladder. I believe that we can make and push for our languages to be more respected and valuable than it is currently. If we stand strong, work fiercely to develop our languages to gain a prominent place in the corporate world, I have no doubt that we can have a true success. If we do not ‘fight for our language liberation’ the very idea of an African country or experience will remain just a romantic idea that exists only in the ideal; to be found among those in nostalgia. In reality it does not exist. If we say that we are content with the way and the current state of our indigenous are, we heading for a disaster, indigenous languages will be wiped out completely there will be nothing left for the next generations to come. If we truly to maintain and revitalize indigenous languages, let’s give them an active role in our society, the one that the native speaker can be proud of, not just for identity, heritage and culture.

Mpolokeng is Masters Student (African Studies Program) at Indiana University. She writes in her personal capacity.

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