Why are our languages dying?

By CRAIG ALAN VOLKER

LANGUAGE TOKTOK
A monthly discussion about
language in PNG and beyond

IN this monthly discussion we will answer one question about language in PNG and beyond. This month we are looking at why the number of languages in PNG is declining and why languages are dying.
Everyone knows that PNG has more languages than any other country in the world. But you don’t have to be a linguist to know that many of these languages are not in good health and some are dying out. Why is this?
There are quite a few reasons why languages are dying out. Sometimes it is because of natural disasters. When the Aitape tsunami hit the northern coast, several small villages were wiped out, including some which were the only places where small languages were spoken. The only speakers of these languages who survived were the lucky ones who happened to be away studying, shopping, or working in towns or plantations. Few of them will marry people who speak their own language, so we can assume their languages will not be passed on.
Climate change is also a culprit. The inhabitants of the Carteret Islands, for example, use their language vigorously now, but I wonder what will happen when they have all been resettled on larger islands and the first generation grows up surrounded by neighbours speaking other languages.
But much more than nature, the greatest enemies PNG languages have are their own speakers. For a language to have a natural life, it needs to be learned by young children in natural surroundings. In many families, parents speak some language other than their own with their children, usually Tok Pisin. Sometimes this is because the parents are from different language backgrounds. At other times, both parents are from the same language, but they speak Tok Pisin with each other and with their children because they are living in town or other mixed area and are just used to speaking Tok Pisin all day long.
I have even heard some parents telling me they speak Tok Pisin to their young children “because it is easier than tok ples”. This, of course, is not true. For an adult, Tok Pisin is much easier to learn than most local languages. But young children’s minds are naturally wired to absorb whatever language is in their surroundings. This makes it especially important for them to be exposed to their ancestral languages when they are young; what is a headache to a thirty-year-old is play to a three-year-old.
Some parents choose to speak only a major language at home because they don’t want to confuse their children by speaking several languages at home. But again, young children’s minds are wired for multilingualism. As long as the languages are kept separate (Mum speaks language A, Dad speaks language B, and the neighbours speak language C), they can easily separate them all in their heads and learn them all at the same time.
At the turn of the century the government established vernacular elementary schools. One of the aims was to strengthen local languages and cultures. There are many reasons why this experiment failed (most notably the lack of good planning and teacher training), but in some areas it was because families assumed the schools would teach the vernacular language, so they would not have to speak it at home. But schools alone cannot keep a community language alive. It must be used at home, with all the love and warmth that only a home can bring. So if you want your own language to remaining among the living, you have to make that effort and start speaking it with your children and grandchildren every day. Otherwise you might find that you end up being the last speaker of your language.
It is hard for people to imagine a day when their language is no longer spoken, but it is happening more and more, not only in PNG, but in indigenous societies around the world. Old people who are the last speakers of their languages tell us how lonely it is when they have no one to speak to in their own language. One man told me he speaks to the flowers in his garden every morning in the language his parents used with him, “because today the flowers are the only ones who will listen to me”.
n Professor Volker is a linguist living in New Ireland and an Adjunct Professor in The Cairns Institute, James Cook University, Queensland. He welcomes your language questions for this monthly discussion at [email protected] or PO Box 642, Kavieng.