
The Race to Save 'Contact Languages' - pseudolus
https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200901-the-fragile-state-of-contact-languages
======
sradman
I think the race is not to “Save” pidgins and creole languages but instead to
fully document them. These languages represent a unique natural experiment
that will probably not occur again. Studying them provides insight into how
the language module of the mind works.

~~~
yorwba
Documenting a language is how you "save" it. When a language is dying out,
that means people are no longer learning it, which implies that native
speakers are not using it to communicate with their children. One reason for
people to use a different language with their children is to give them a
headstart in school, where another language is used for instruction, and to
avoid the stigma that comes with speaking a less prestigious language. If
their own language is closely related to the prestige language of the region
(very likely in case of a contact language) it's easy to compare the two,
notice that they're different and conclude that the prestige language is
"correct" while anything different from it is "wrong". That can lead to
extreme social pressure. If you've ever made an embarrassing mispronunciation,
you'll know the feeling, but now imagine everything you say is "incorrect".

Language documentation doesn't completely change the social environment, but
can indirectly enhance the language's prestige, e.g. by devising a writing
system that then gets adopted in education and media and by raising awareness
that "different" doesn't necessarily mean "wrong". It also means that children
who grew up without learning their parent's mother tongues but want to learn
them later in life can use the material collected as part of language
documentation for studying.

~~~
082349872349872
We were lucky, in the silver lining sense, to have had expansionist
neighbours. In the nineteenth century, the french said we didn't speak "real"
french. In the twentieth, both the germans and the italians said we didn't
speak "real" german or "real" italian.

In response (our dialects having had an army) where before those countries had
been taken as arbitrating the prestige forms of their languages, there's been
a revival of local dialect. We don't have an "RP": politicians in 2020 will of
course use a prestige register in speech, but don't bother to hide their
dialects.

(Written language has an orthography, taught in school. But most people I know
treat SMS/chat as an oral, not literate, form. In german this results in
idiosyncratic spelling, in french, "langage SMS")

~~~
tasogare
You are speaking of Swiss right?

Too bad in France there was a policy of linguistics cleansing which
effectively destroyed dialects and non-French languages as fast as in two
generations. Of course there are other factors as well, like marriages in-
between people of different regions.

~~~
082349872349872
Oui. Cependant, il y a:
[http://www.petitnicolas.com/collection/albums#collection-
lan...](http://www.petitnicolas.com/collection/albums#collection-langues-de-
france)

PS. 3 bises > 2 bises ... but on the other hand, if it weren't for you all, we
wouldn't have verlan :-)

PPS.
[https://i.pinimg.com/originals/6e/d4/b0/6ed4b0c84ac892dc5b9d...](https://i.pinimg.com/originals/6e/d4/b0/6ed4b0c84ac892dc5b9d01608ec989d5.jpg)

------
cmsefton
Not sure if it's classified as a contact language, but out of interest, in
South Africa, there is a Zulu based language with a mix of English and
Afrikaans thrown in known as Fanagalo or Fanakalo
([https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fanagalo](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fanagalo))
that is believed to have evolved from British colonialists talking to their
servants, but quickly grew into a common language used in the mining industry.
It's been in steady decline since the 70's. It's a rare case of a pidgin
language based on an indigenous language. Zimbabwe and Zambia also have their
own indigenous-based pidgin languages.

~~~
mtts
Another example from South Africa is Afrikaans. It uses words that are clearly
Dutch, but the underlying structure has more in common with the Bantu
languages that surround it.

This example also shows, however, that the category of contact languages is
rather fluid. Afrikaans is not an outrightly obvious example of one. While the
grammar is fairly simple - and very little like that of Dutch - the vocabulary
us almost exclusively Dutch.

So it could be a creole - albeit one with the vocabulary almost exclusively
from one of the contributing languages, which is extremely rare. But it could
also be an offshoot of Dutch that had its grammar simplified and adapted to
surrounding languages without picking up more than a handful of words from
those same languages - which is also unusual.

All this to say contact languages come in many forms - and, like the article
says, should be studied because they teach us how language works.

------
retox
Probably an unpopular opinion but I'm not convinced by the article that this
is a worthwhile endeavor. If a language has no written form, and those that
actually use it view it as not worth saving what is the benefit of
artificially preserving it other than as an historical curiosity.

The article says peoples cultural or ethnic identity are at risk, "an entire
tradition can die with them" but it seems more that the culture has changed
and the language is no longer useful. Long ago I watched a TED(x?) talk on the
topic and the thrust of the speakers argument is that there are concepts that
simply cannot be conveyed in other languages, but even at the time it seemed
like a specious argument. There are loan words that are common in the English
language and I don't think anyone is eager to replace with a 'native' word.

After having written the above the only reason I can think of is traditional
songs that are passed down orally, which would be a loss I admit. Interested
to learn something in the comments that I've probably overlooked.

~~~
dang
I don't know if it's an "unpopular opinion" but it shows up in every thread
about endangered languages, including more than once in this thread, also
self-described as an "unpopular opinion"
([https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24351020](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24351020)).

~~~
exolymph
That doesn't negate the claim that it's unpopular (although I don't have a
position on that personally). Vocal minorities often exhibit unpopular
opinions.

------
newsbinator
Unpopular opinion: I never understood this drive to save or revitalize dying
languages.

People create languages to communicate on an as-needed basis. And languages
that aren't needed anymore or that are supplanted by other forces fall away.

Language is not a finite resource. Language is not equivalent to culture, and
even if it were, culture is not a finite resource.

I'll be thrilled if every language in the world disappears except for one, and
we all communicate in it. I don't care which one, although ideally it'll be a
simple or logical one, like Indonesian/Malay, with a writing system like
Hangul.

I wouldn't even be bothered if it's my own culture disappearing if the upshot
is the global efficiency gain of everybody speaking, reading, and writing in
ways that everybody else instantly understands, without the need for multi-
lingual versions or translation software or human translators.

People who want to still do learn latin or Ancient Greek or Sanskrit. And even
if they couldn't, the trade-off is still worth it times a thousand.

What about the mental exercise and developmental benefits of being bilingual?
As a multi-lingual person myself, I recognize this. But there's no reason your
other languages have to be from a particular culture or can't be constructed
languages.

I'm guessing bilingual English/Korean kids or bilingual Spanish/Toki-Pona kids
get all the same benefits, regardless of the particular language pair.

~~~
PikachuEXE
I wouldn't say every language is worth saving in "my view"

But "losing a language" (losing all the users except those studying it) could
lead to some loss of the convey of certain unique culture (that can only be
represented accurately in that language)

Having one language only is either (1) A group of people forcing every people
in the world using it or (2) All people in the world are willing to give up
using all other languages

For (1), it's not what myself and many people want as it means our freedom is
taken away.

For (2), I think it's unlikely to happen as different languages have different
specialties in representing some concepts. Having one language only probably
means some concepts cannot be well communicated.

I can speak Cantonese (Hong Kong version), English and read some Japanese
(enough for my games & comics). I would never give up any of them.

~~~
philplckthun
With Cantonese being mentioned in particular it’s worth noting that China has
always acted to eliminate other languages in the country to the point where
Cantonese and other languages aren’t spoken anymore in the mainland.

This may seem more efficient to the OP but we’re not talking about a common
official language being known by all, but a single language displacing all
others for the purpose to homogenise a country that consists of many cultures
into a single one.

So it’s important to say: language is not only a tool but a reflection of
culture, identity, and your part of society. We can learn a lot about people
by learning their languages, and the disappearance of a language is always
significant.

~~~
yorwba
> China has always acted to eliminate other languages in the country to the
> point where Cantonese and other languages aren’t spoken anymore in the
> mainland.

Not really. Cantonese and other languages not part of the fifty-odd official
standard languages of China aren't taught in most schools, but that doesn't
mean Mandarin has completely taken over. With the exception of big cities that
have seen a lot of recent migration (e.g. the number of Shanghainese speakers
has grown with the Chinese population boom, but the number of migrants has
grown even more, so now it's a minority language in Shanghai itself) if you
listen to a random conversation between locals, you'll be more likely to hear
a non-Mandarin language than Mandarin.

It's also not that non-Mandarin languages are completely excluded from
official use, they're just called "dialects" instead of languages. For
example, schools in Xiamen started teaching the local Hokkien in 2010 (a few
years after a similar policy change in Taiwan) and most small TV stations have
programs in the local language (especially traditional plays and songs).

~~~
keiferski
[https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/xg8p7n/the-only-
mongolian...](https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/xg8p7n/the-only-mongolian-
language-social-media-site-was-shut-down-in-china)

~~~
yorwba
The protests are about the introduction of _some_ Standard Mandarin classes in
schools that were previously using Mongolian exclusively. (Albeit again a
standardized form instead of the full spectrum of Mongolic languages and
dialects spoken throughout China.)

Those changes are unlikely to lead to phasing out official use of Mongolian in
China anytime soon. (E.g. on the Mongolian version of the website of the
government of Inner Mongolia:
[http://mgl.nmg.gov.cn/U_index.html](http://mgl.nmg.gov.cn/U_index.html) )

~~~
keiferski
It takes some serious cognitive dissonance to think that the CCP isn’t slowly
phasing out all non-Mandarin languages and cultures. This isn’t something
unique to China, either: France eliminated most of its regional languages in
the same fashion, although that was hundreds of years ago.

~~~
yorwba
France has had hundreds of years to try and eliminate regional languages, and
yet there still are people speaking many of those languages, even if they only
form a small minority. Language death is a very slow process.

I think you're also missing that the Chinese government's language policy is
not driven by a single aim. Making the populace predictable and controllable
are reasons for the central government to prefer a single language and
culture, but trade with Mongolia and tourism where visitors get to experience
living in traditional Mongolian yurts, listening to traditional Mongolian
songs and riding horses in the traditional Mongolian way are strong economic
incentives for the government of Inner Mongolia to retain the Mongolian
language and culture.

------
082349872349872
Just do one thing: let subcontinental indian english do this century to en-us
what en-us did to en-gb last century. If the yanks yammer, we can simply ask
them to kindly adjust :-)

(Over on this continent, we've also seen the emergence of en-eu as a contact
language, much to the dismay of the ethnic english.)

Edit: (clarification here due to rate-limit)

Demographically, I expect en-in to become the english "standard" (just going
by history: some english are still salty that most people who learn english
these days learn what they'd consider "american").

    
    
           pop(M)
        IN 1'300 
        US   300
        UK    70
    

(Once upon a time, a smiley indicated attached advocacy was not in earnest.)

Edit2: retox — one reason to "save" languages which applies even if no one
intends to use them in dialogue is to have a wide variety of empirical
examples of language formation, which can then quantitatively inform our
attempts to reverse engineer current languages and dialects.

Edit3: as to the argument by economic power, maybe it's just chutzpah, but
I'll point out that many dope additions to en-us have come from AAVE, which is
not normally considered a dialect representing economic power. As I expect
future english usage to be driven by phone chatters, that demographic should
correlate with population.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/African-
American_Vernacular_En...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/African-
American_Vernacular_English)

~~~
helsinkiandrew
I'm not sure 1.3B Indians can justify giving Indian English priority when only
125M of them speak English with just 9.5M with it as their first language.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_English-s...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_English-
speaking_population)

~~~
082349872349872
Very good point. (My sample of indian english speakers has obviously been a
biased one!) In that case, I'd expect the poor english to continue to see
everyone else appropriate their language, and the strength of dialects to
range as:

    
    
        en-us  native
        en-eu  creole
        en-gb  native
    

(Is there an opportunity to form a contact language between cmn's 1,1 billion
and en's 1,3 billion? Guess we should ask en-sg speakers, lah)

~~~
rightbyte
There is no English creole forming in Europe. Textbook English in schools and
then hardly spoken outside some corporate environments. I would rather
classify workplace English as just bad English.

I guess you need a more wide and natural speaking of bad English for a creole
to form when people try to over-bridge their bad English with own inventions?

~~~
082349872349872
Workplace english is only bad english when there is poor communication. I've
been happy with my results of using business english in many EU countries (the
underlying transactions having had little to do with central standards of
either orthography or grammar), and as far as I can tell, the only people who
judge "good" or "poor" english as more important than good communication are
those anglophones who view themselves as "middle class."

That said, agreed that there's probably more progress necessary for a true
creole. (What language do people normally speak on vacation? Many of tourists
who come here try english if they're not entirely comfortable in a local
language.)

~~~
rightbyte
I rate myself as speaking OK English and have worked alot speaking english to
non native english speakers but I still feel any non trivial discussion in
English are about half as effective and much more exhausting. I will probably
never get used to it.

~~~
082349872349872
I admit I was only thinking about reading and writing[1], but I know what you
mean about exhausting. That does slowly go away with use.

Speaking comfort (judging by my circle) generally takes a couple of years of
immersion. Now that we have large quantities of video online[2] in the popular
languages, listening comprehension should be far easier to come by, but
speaking is always the difficult part.

The two best ways I've found to learn to speak are (a) trying to get some real
world task done, and (b) drunken pub convos. Note that in both these cases
perfection is secondary to communication.

[1] Dijkstra ("EWD") had a better written english than many native speakers.

[2] In countries where I'm amazed at the local command of english, it's often
because their TV ran english programs undubbed.

