Language abounds everywhere. But did you know that there are more than a thousand languages? All over the world, the Ethnologue ( the highest authority on languages on the web) estimates spoken languages to be over 7,000 with written and bilingual speakers unaccounted for. It’s been documented that most of the world’s languages are unaccounted for because their speakers either dwell in rural areas or in places that are not easily accessible. Presently, only 6,809 languages of all spoken languages are considered to be “living” and 90% of them have less than 100,000 speakers. This means that over 6,100 of these languages are at the risk of extinction. Simply put, what makes a language are its speakers, so when a language has less than 10,000 speakers, it simply means that language is bordering on extinction.
The United Nations recently evaluated languages and arrived at the fact that at least one language disappears every two weeks at the world may likely have only three languages at the end of this century. Language may be usually defined as a structured system of communication used by many people. This definition in no way shows the value of language despite being correct. Language goes beyond communication to giving a person an identity. It is the essence of any culture and is responsible for the transfer of ideas and promotion of a community. A language usually differs from community to community, tribe to tribe, and even nation to nation hence it is unique.
What is Indigenous Language?
An indigenous language is native to a particular region and spoken by Indigenous people. It is usually an embodiment of history, knowledge, and skills. It is one of the greatest symbols of human diversity. We could even say, it is a key to understanding ourselves. Take, for instance, a foreigner who visits an African country and refuses to eat with a spoon. When he speaks his language, it’s easy to know he’s Asian and a person who is familiar with the Asian culture can easily guess he might be searching for chopsticks. While this doesn’t completely describe the situation, communication has taken place.
Speaking of communication, it’s quite easy to misunderstand English as the most popular language but this couldn’t be further from the truth. Mandarin Chinese is the most popular language or the most widely spoken language on earth. This could be unbelievable for some, but I guess it is most likely as to the fact that the most populated country in the world has it as their indigenous language. While it’s not possible to cover all the languages in the world, this post covers some languages and where there are spoken. Most counties have numerous languages spoken in them and may even more than one official language but there’s only one indigenous language which is known as the Lingua Franca. Examples of indigenous languages include:
Afghan Persian or Dari – Dari is an official language in Afghanistan and functions as the county’s lingua Franca.
Albanian – is the official language of Albania and it is derived from the Tosk dialect.
Arabic: It’s the official language of Bahrain, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, etc. It has been adopted by a minority of some countries like Afghanistan.
Balochi: Spoken by a minority population in Afghanistan.
Bangla: The national language of Bangladesh which is spoken by 98.8% of its population.
Catalan – the official language of Andorra.
Dutch – Spoken in Belgium, Indonesia, and Suriname.
English: It’s the official language of the USA, Australia, Barbados, Belize, Canada, etc. It’s widely spoken in numerous other countries.
French – It is the lingua franca of Algeria and France but an official language in numerous countries. Arabic (official), Berber, or Tamazight (official). It is also an official language in many African countries.
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German: The official language of Austria and Germany.
Italian: It is the national language of Italy and an official language in Vatican City.
Korea – It’s the language of both North and South Korea spoken by 100% of their population.
Maltese: This is spoken in Malta.
Mandarin – The most widely spoken language on earth. It’s spoken in China.
Mapudungun – the Indigenous language of Argentina.
Quechua – the Indigenous language of Argentina
Portuguese: The official language of Angola and is the most widely spoken in Brazil.
Spanish – It is the official language of Argentina.
Sinhala – It is the official and national language of St. Kitts and Nevis, St. Lucia, St. Vincent, and the Gaines, and Sri Lanka.
Tamil – It is the official and national language of St. Kitts and Nevis, St. Lucia, St. Vincent, the Grenadines, and Sri Lanka. A small minority in India also speaks Tamil.
Uzbek – It’s the official language of Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. It’s spoken by a minority population in Afghanistan too.
Why Should We Value Indigenous Languages?
Languages have existed before we were born and quite frankly, while we fade, they would remain. The problem is whose language is going to “live”. Some languages in the world have only one known living speaker so people don’t even know they exist. When the speaker dies, the world slowly forgets the language and with a forgotten language goes a forgotten culture. These are the reasons why we should value our Indigenous language.
- Indigenous language promotes and preserves culture: When asked to define culture, a person would most likely call it the way of life of a people. Language is a people’s way of life, in essence, their culture. When the language of a people fades out, their culture disappears along with it. This is prevalent to the point which you could practice a specific people’s lifestyle but may not attribute it to them because there are no speakers of their language. In other words, the absence of language is the absence of culture.
- An Indigenous language is an ideal entity: When a group of blacks huddles together, they all seem to be one. But when they begin speaking their languages, they can be identified as belonging to a specific tribe, country, or nation. Language is an identity, not just words.
- Indigenous language shapes perception: This may be a bit of a stretch but the language we speak molds how we see things as well as how people see us. For instance, an Igbo speaker is known in a foreign place by his language and perceived by others to be greedy as well as love money. Subconsciously, persons around him who are from other tribes, guard again him. Also, native speakers of the Australian language the orders of things from East to West.
- It promotes the beauty of human diversity: Language shows us that we are different as per culture and beliefs but are still able to thrive together. Indigenous language speakers have a uniqueness about them that when brought together yields great returns. Take, for instance, the United States of America which is made up of people from different places. They are one of the most advanced countries in the world.
- It brings development: These days everyone is in a hurry to either learn Mandarin, Spanish, German, or French because they want to go to China, Spain, Germany, or France. This is because these countries are economically advanced and their indigenous language has aided easy communication as it’s the most widely spoken in them. This development which was brought by easy commute has also caused language promotion.
- The value of indigenous languages may go on and on but this would be irrelevant if people refuse to curb the extinction of their languages. What usually makes languages go extinct would be;
- Parents not teaching their children their languages. When parents of two children don’t teach their children the native language of their people, they have caused there to be two fewer speakers who in turn will be unable to teach their children. As this continues, slowly the language fades away.
- Children abandon the languages they were taught and abduct another language. This is very common now, especially amongst the youths of underdeveloped nations. This may have resulted from either an inferiority complex or because they believe learning the languages of developed nations would grant them better economic opportunities.
- When the native speakers of a language are a minority and live in inaccessible areas. When these people die, their language faces extinction.
- The right answer to the question, “What is Indigenous language?” would be, the basic block for any society in need of development. Any society or tribe that doesn’t value its language is already at risk of failure because it doesn’t value itself. Language may very well be the first link to understanding oneself. And if one doesn’t know oneself, how can such one even build what is good for him. A good view of developed countries would show that a majority of their population are speakers of their native languages. While the basis of development cannot be built solely on indigenous language, it wouldn’t hinder you to work with people who understand and identify their cultures.
