Languages: conflict or coexistence?

Contents • 6,000 languages: an embattled heritage • Zaparo’s lost secrets • Winners and losers 1 War of words • Can English be dethroned? • The trials of a Gikuyu writer • Berber’s shining star • A Basque writer leaps into translation 2 Concordant voices • In praise of multilingualism • Defenders of diversity • Shuara, a language that refused to die • India: bursting at the linguistic seams • Users are choosers

Philippe Franchini, Paris From time immemorial, languages have come to birth, lived and died with the societies that engendered them. Today, however, they are dying out at unprecedented speed. As a result of what have been called “language wars”, the great majority of the 6,000 languages spoken in the world today may disappear in the foreseeable future. Linguistic diversity is imperilled, and with it a part of the human heritage, for language is the cornerstone of cultural diversity, which is in its turn a mainstay in the preservation of biodiversity (pages 18-19). There are many reasons for language wars in which English at the world level (pages 23-24) and other “major” regional languages gain ground at the expense of “minority” languages. But the big battalions do not always win, as the struggles to preserve Basque, Berber and Gikuyu illustrate (pages 24-28). At the same time, coexistence between languages can and is being fostered (page 29). Through international co-operation to promote multilingualism, especially in education (pages 30-31); through specific national policies, as in India (pages 33-34); and through grassroots initiatives like that of the Ecuadorian Shuar, who have used the rebirth of their language as a springboard into the modern world (pages 32-33). Also in Ecuador, the story of the Zaparo (pages 19 and 22) shows the other side of the coin. The Zaparo did not mobilize until late in the day, and their language now seems doomed to disappear and with it their very existence as an ethnic group. As the last article in this Focus section reveals (pages 35-36), the fate of a language depends ultimately on the commitment of its users. Meanwhile, the disappearance of minority languages may be accompanied by the emergence of new hybrid tongues or variants spawned by the diversification of dominant languages.