1. Introduction
1.1. Degradation of the natural environment and the ecosystem is proceeding rapidly on a global scale. Every day we are made aware of pollution of the land, sea, and air, the depletion of natural resources, the excess of waste materials, and the extinction of entire species of animals and plants. In recent years, it has been acknowledged and accepted without argument that the natural ecosystem (all the way up to the ozone layer) and the global environment are fragile and in grave danger.
Another contemporary problem is directly linked to the mechanisms of environmental degradation and the diminution of biological diversity: the problem of creeping extinction threatening the unique languages that form the core of the traditional cultures, which have distinguished the world's ethnic groups from time immemorial, and the accelerating loss of linguistic diversity. The problems with the natural environment and ecosystems and the problems with languages clearly stem from the same sources, are linked in hidden ways, and move in tandem. The scenario in which people from the "civilized" countries encroach upon the natural environments that aboriginal peoples have protected and coexisted with, expropriate the land and natural resources, and suppress indigenous languages and cultures has occurred in countless locations around the world over the past several centuries.
While both environmental destruction and linguistic extinction are global problems, many believe that a higher percentage of languages than living species are endangered and that the speed of linguistic extinction is faster than that of biological extinction. Despite this, the problem of endangered languages-unlike the loss of biological species and the environmental destruction that can be perceived relatively close at hand-has barely penetrated public awareness, particularly in Japan; the government, businesses, scholarly community, and mass media show almost no interest in the problem. The near extinction of the Japanese crested ibis (toki) and the efforts to protect it have been constantly reported in the media, but were there any national newspapers that reported the death of the last speaker of the equally irreplaceable Sakhalin dialect of the Ainu language in 1994?
It is generally easy to recognize some sort of value or function in each plant or animal species, whether that means usefulness, beauty, or an endearing appearance, particularly if the species is in one's immediate area. People react keenly to the loss of this kind of diversity. They have no trouble understanding that a sharp decrease in biological species leads to multiple breaks in the food chain whose ultimate position is filled by human beings, and can lead to an ecological catastrophe, the cumulative effects of which may endanger the very existence of the human race.
Meanwhile, it is easy to view the disappearance of languages as something that has happened throughout world history, making it less likely that people will see this loss as a pressing issue. If an ethnic group is encroached upon by another people, adopts the other party's language, and loses its own, that group itself does not disappear, so one is unlikely to perceive this loss of language as a serious problem. Japan in particular is unusual among the nations of the world in that the majority of its people, aside from some small minorities, live with a single language whose survival is seemingly assured. For precisely that reason, they almost never think about the importance of being able to use a native language without restrictions, or of the significance of a native language being suppressed and lost.
Languages are said to be living things, and as such not immune to change and extinction, phenomena that affect all forms of life. Incidentally, this analogy with living things is nothing new, as shown by the linguistic family tree theory that prevailed at the beginning of the nineteenth century. In recent years, linguistic diversity and its decline have been compared to the decline of biological diversity-particularly in tropical regions, where observers have pointed out the correlation between biological diversity and linguistic diversity and their coevolution (Nettle and Romaine 2000, Maffi 2001). However, I hesitate to push the similarities between biological diversity and linguistic diversity too far. Not every aspect of languages and living things is directly comparable. True linguistic diversity-the kind seen when diversity of language families is paired with a wide range of morphological types (though this diversity is not reflected in the actual number of languages)-can occur in regions with poor environmental conditions or regions lacking in biological diversity.
It goes without saying that the phrases "languages in danger of extinction" or "endangered languages" come from the biological term "endangered species." Naturally, it is extremely unpleasant for a speaker of such a language to hear that language being compared to an endangered species. While I entirely understand those feelings, I will use the established terminology here.
1.2. I will begin with a simple summary of the current situation. According to the newest edition of Ethnologue: Languages of the World (Grimes 2000), a little more than 6,800 languages are currently spoken in the world. These languages range widely in terms of size, from major languages like Chinese and English to languages with only one speaker. The speakers of 96% (about 6,530) of these languages amount to no more than 4% of the world's population, while a mere 4% (about 270) of these languages are spoken by 96% of the world's population. In short, 96% of languages are extremely small ones. In every sense of the word, these languages of limited distribution are in a situation like nearly extinct species, or are approaching extinction in a proportion or at a speed comparable to that of living creatures. At the very least, they are currently in danger of extinction.
As a matter of fact, efforts are underway all over the world to revive languages that are on the verge of extinction or already extinct (or, as some say, merely dormant or silent), with many examples reported and strategies proposed (Hinton and Hale 2001). Expectations for these projects are high, and we cannot but hope for the success of these efforts. It may, however, be an almost insurmountable challenge. Once a biological species is extinct, it is impossible to revive it; similarly, once a language is extinct, it is no easy matter, to say the least, to revive it-assuming that one is not blessed with extraordinarily favorable conditions, such as those in which the Hebrew language was revived.
The deciding factor for predicting the degree of danger that a language is in-or alternately the feasibility of its revitalization-is not the mere number of speakers. Many conditions (including national policies) can influence a language's fate, but first and foremost is the question of whether children are learning the language of their parents and grandparents as a native language and using it on a daily basis. When a native language stops being acquired and used, it is like stopping the process of heredity or breaking natural lines of transmission, and we may compare it to what happens when a species loses the ability to reproduce, whether because of environmental hormones (endocrine disruptors) or for any other reason. In either case, resurrection is impossible. This biological model is one way to look at linguistic extinction; another is through the predictions of Michael E. Krauss (1992).
His predictions are more severe than most people would imagine, but many linguists view them as more or less realistic. Starting from the notion that 6,000 languages are spoken around the world, Krauss predicts that 50% of them will be extinct within 100 years, or by the end of the twenty-first century. In the worst case scenario, 95% will be either extinct or on the verge of extinction. In other words, this means that only 300 languages (5%) can be considered "safe" at present. Krauss's classifications are:
(1) Moribund languages: Children have already stopped acquiring them as native languages. This category includes 20% to 50% of languages.
(2) Endangered languages: Children are still continuing to learn them as native languages, but it is believed that they will move into Category (1) by the end of the twenty-first century if present trends continue. This category includes 40% to 75% of languages.
(3) Safe languages: They are assured of continuing to be spoken in the future. This category includes 5% to 10% of languages.
These predictions were made about 10 years ago, and in early 2000 a set of classifications refined by Krauss was discussed by leading world experts on language endangerment at Bonn, Germany. Fundamentally, however, they are not believed to be in need of serious revision (Brenzinger 2001).
The decline and extinction of languages is going on all over the world. However, endangered languages are not distributed evenly across the globe: the distribution is rather skewed geographically. As the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization's Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger of Disappearing (Wurm 2001) clearly shows, the greatest concentration of weak languages is in the Pacific Rim region (including the Ocean itself) of which Japan is a part. In this region the most critical situations are found in Papua New Guinea, Australia, the southern reaches of South America (Patagonia), and around the North Pacific Rim (northeast Asia and northwest North America)
1.3. In Hokkaido, Japan, enthusiastic and serious efforts to revive the Ainu language have been made since the mid-1980s. Weekly Ainu language classes for children and adults are offered by the Hokkaido Utari Association at 14 locations on the northern island, training of Ainu language teachers is progressing, and quarterly papers in Ainu are published, certainly increasing the number of learners of the Ainu language. These steady efforts for revitalization of the language are encouraging and truly worthy of respect. It must be admitted, however, that the Ainu language is, realistically speaking, not yet far from being in danger compared with other languages in the world with similar or more favorable situations, where much more strenuous and systematic efforts for revitalization are being made. See Tamura (2000) as well as Okuda's contribution (chapter ) in this volume.
Relentless linguistic decline, however, is not a problem merely for Ainu and the suppressed, enfeebled languages of minority groups in other countries. This danger has also crept up steadily and surely on the world's major languages (with the probable exception of English) in countries throughout the world where people are not talking about-and often not aware of-the linguistic crisis. Language is a lot like air, in that "pollution" of it is hardly perceived as a problem until it becomes too severe. By the time one notices that one's own language has fallen into danger of extinction, it is usually too late. Unless decisive measures are instituted, the languages in Category (2) may move into Category (1), and those in Category (3) into Category (2). As long as current trends continue, it is hard to imagine the tide turning, and the Japanese language is no exception.
Of course, even under the previously mentioned worst-case scenario, the Japanese language itself is currently in Category (3), "safe" languages. However, the answers to the questions of whether Japanese will continue to be safe forever, and whether the Japanese people will maintain an adherence to established forms (kodawari) of their language, are by no means certain. The term kodawari has come to have a positive meaning in recent years (as seen in advertising by companies who use it to stress their pursuit of excellence in their products), but in the past, it used to have an exclusively negative connotation as a sort of stubborn reluctance to alteration. Might that not be why the Japanese, lacking much of a kodawari toward their traditional culture, have been so receptive to the foreign and the heterogeneous, in response to the times, their situation, and the countries they are dealing with? The uncritical acceptance of foreign loanwords may be one example of this phenomenon. On top of that it is undeniable that the Japanese in general have an unusually reverent approach to-the reverse of the coin of an inferiority complex about-the English language.
The contemporary Japanese language is flooded with "made-in-Japan" pseudo-English expressions, and other words in the katakana syllabary used to write foreign words or words made up of foreign elements. Many people have become concerned about linguistic "pollution" or "disruption." The linguistic pollution brought about by this uncritical acceptance of foreign borrowings is said to be incomparably more severe in Japan than in other industrialized countries that are just as strongly influenced by American culture. It is true that the number of people who have acknowledged this crisis of the Japanese language and are seriously worried about it has increased.
It is highly probable that this vocabulary pollution will increase in the future. However, this in itself does not directly portend the extinction of the Japanese language itself. Ancient Japanese, especially of the Nara period (eighth century C.E.), took in a massive amount of Chinese lexical elements, but this did not turn Japanese into just another variety of Chinese. Of course, given the current use of Japanese on a daily basis in every field of endeavor and every situation, it is difficult to imagine that the language will fall into the endangered category so easily. As long as this is true, there is no reason to view Japanese as being in immediate danger. However, the Japanese and Ryukyuan dialects throughout the country have been undergoing an inexorable decline as compulsory education and the mass media (especially television) have become pervasive in Japanese society. At the same time, the use of these dialects in everyday life has decreased, and they have been replaced by more standard forms of the language, even within the home. As a result, it is undeniably true that the traditional dialects have moved into Category (1), now that they are no longer being transmitted to children.
As the tide of economic globalization gathers strength and the spread of "Internet English" accelerates, we have begun to hear the phrase, "the worldwide hegemony of English." One wonders what will happen if this trend continues to the extent that talk of English as a second official language and if the legalizing English as the second official language of Japan becomes more than just a report of a governmental advisory panel. It is not easy to predict the fate of the Japanese language, but I think that we may have to consider the possibility of it moving from Category (3) to Category (2), and eventually to Category (1), sooner than we could have imagined. It should be added that serious concern about and criticism of globalization and the hegemony of English have come to be voiced even among Japanese English-language educators, though these voices are still a minority (see, for example, Tsuda 2001).
However, when considering the problem of endangered languages, unless we narrow the discussion to the more threatened languages in Category (1) we will lose our focus. For this reason, I will not include the future of the Japanese language in the following discussion.
While the problems of global environmental degradation and loss of species diversity are easy for people overall to perceive as sources of anxiety or crises, the extinction of languages and the loss of linguistic diversity, despite having common sources with environmental and biological problems, are perceived in different ways by different people, even among those relatively rare people who are aware of them. Therefore, I will first consider in the next section the different ways in which people understand the problems and the meaning of linguistic extinction in the light of the multifaceted functions of language. In the third section, I will look at the problem of endangered languages and linguistic researchers, and in the fourth section, I will discuss Japan's more recent efforts in dealing with endangered languages.
2. The Significance of Linguistic Diversity Viewed in Terms of the Functions of Languages
2.1. If you ask people what the functions of language are, the answer they are most likely to come up with is that language is a tool for communication among people-a tool for telling things to one another. This view of language as a tool is strongly rooted in people's minds. The connection with the problem under discussion is that if we assume that all languages are nothing more than simple tools with the same single function, then there is no reason for multiple languages to coexist within a given country, and linguistic diversity is not only inefficient and uneconomical, but even harmful. In that respect, therefore, it is only natural that we should see the emergence of the attitude that loss of linguistic diversity is actually a welcome phenomenon, with respect to economic globalization based on the worldwide dominance of market economies and the buildup of information and communications infrastructure.
Closely linked to that point of view in many cases is the fact that minority languages with no written form have generally been the object of scorn and discrimination. The prejudiced view that unwritten languages are "underdeveloped languages" with deficient vocabularies, little or incomplete grammatical structure, and inferior functionality pops up now and then among speakers of the major languages and even among some researchers in linguistics. In Japan (and possibly elsewhere), there is a strong notion that field linguistics, in which researchers study unwritten languages in the field, is merely "unskilled labor" to provide material for the arm-chair theoreticians. Some professors even state bluntly that research into unwritten languages is not linguistics. It's as if to say that they would not feel the least sense of loss if these languages were to disappear.
Although communication certainly is an important function of language, it is not the only one. Even as they calmly and rationally evaluate the utility (range of validity) of their own languages in the ever-encroaching contemporary social order, minority groups throughout the world stubbornly resist the extinction-the active eradication, rather than passive decline-of these languages. This very fact demonstrates beyond a doubt that language is far more than a tool for communication.
In order for language to work as a significant tool for communication, it must have a "primordial function" that makes this communication possible and an "immediately functional" effect on the environment that are carried via the vehicle of the communicative aspect of language. Both the functions certainly bear upon the problem of endangered languages. The multifaceted nature of the functions of language need be understood properly in the context of the overall workings and fundamental structure of culture.
2.2. Returning to the comparison of languages with living things, while biological entities must face severe restrictions from their environment "unarmed," human beings have culture as a "cushion" for facing this restrictive environment. Living creatures form part of their own ecosystem (the natural ecosystem) in concert with the inorganic environment that they find themselves in. On the other hand, human beings who have acquired culture, while they are certainly part of the natural ecosystem, are not mere biological entities who are forced to adapt to the environment the best they can. They serve as a special environmental factor different from all other living things, and they can actively affect the environment. Far from merely trying to adapt, they instead place restrictions on the environment. When these actions are carried to extremes, human beings become the villains in environmental destruction and the loss of biological diversity.
Environments meaningful to human beings are something more than the purely natural environment. The environment, or Umwelt, is not simply the total of the environs in which people exist. It is the "environment" of collective and subjective nature that people have built up as they select and classify their surroundings, including the natural world. The legacy of the philosopher Nishida Kitaro (1870-1945) includes such sayings as "Human beings create the environment, and the environment creates human beings," and "An environment is an environment, as long as it is subjective" (1940, 64-65). A human community finds itself in the subjective "environment"-one that differs from one people to another-in which the natural ecosystem that the people is a part of, the social environment that they have built for themselves, and the supernatural environment (the mythological world, the spiritual world, and the "next world") they have constructed more often than not blend seamlessly with one another.
As far as human beings are concerned, this kind of "environment" and its ceaseless interactions with the people that is subject to the environmental restrictions are the very process of ecological adaptation. Culture is widely understood as a broad pattern of adaptation strategies (actions) for adapting to the environment. Ever since J.H. Steward in particular, "culture and environment" is a theme which has been pursued by cultural anthropologists and geographers, and, in Japan, particularly by specialists in ecological anthropology, which grew out of research into primates (Steward 1955, Watanabe 1977, Kawakita 1989). The term "cultural ecology" has been proposed and employed by some of the researchers.
Yet human involvement with the environment goes beyond mere processes of environmental adaptation. A certain perception or cognizance of the environment (1) is surely a prerequisite for the adoption of appropriate adaptation strategies (2)-in other words, more or less standard action patterns. Simply stated, people must articulate or classify (wakeru) and understand (wakaru) their environment. (This not uncommon vowel alternation seen here in wakeru and wakaru seems to capture the intrinsic connection between classification and understanding.) It is only when people are cognizant of their environment that they can be ready to decide on appropriate adaptation strategies. It may even be dangerous to take indiscriminate action toward something that has not been classified (i.e., understood). Here is the essential link between cognizance of and ecological adaptation to the environment. It is human language that plays a fundamental and sometimes decisive role in this cognizance. This means that a mere ecological understanding of culture as a cushion against the environment is insufficient, as is a mere instrumental view of language as a means of communication.
2.3. Human beings classify or categorize the environment (natural, social and supernatural) of which they constitute a part into discontinuous units according to their unique way of cognizance. By being named the discontinuous categories are linguistically fixed as symbols (belonging to the vocabulary). Cognizance, however, is not just a tidying up of the environment through categorization, but is also the way the categories are manipulated and shaped up into thought and speech according to certain channels (largely belonging to the processes of grammar).
Each of the categories that are the results of articulation or classification of the environment is paired with a proper adaptation strategy (2 above). But these actions are also accompanied by various things shared more or less by the members of the (linguistic) community, including:
(a) things or tools incidental to that action, in other words material culture
(b) values (attitudes) in the broadest sense; a variety of meanings and images-sentimental-emotional, metaphorical-symbolic, and magical-ceremonial; and even philosophies
(c) past experiences and knowledge (sometimes exceeding that of the most up-to-date science) about the elements that comprise the environment
In sum, culture can be regarded as consisting of (1) how a given (linguistic) community classifies and thereby understands the entirety of its own natural, social, and supernatural environment-in other words, the extralinguistic world (realia) that constitute the environment-and, in fundamental connection with the state of this cognizance, categorization and how the categories are manipulated in various ways (to shape thought and linguistic expression); and (2) the patterns unique to the community according to which it makes various kinds of ecological adaptations to the environment. Even in the case of communities with simple material and technological cultures, we invariably feel fresh surprise and awe to find embedded in the vocabularies of their languages those deep insights into their own environment and ingenious adaptations to it that impress us with the breadth of human wisdom. And the diversity shown by languages guarantees the richness of human thought and expression in this area.
Culture as such, made up of (1) cognizance (categorization and manipulation of categories) and (2) ecological adaptations (patterned actions), is down to the tiniest detail infused-komerarete iru-in language, permeating every aspect of it (Miyaoka 1996). While it is one element of culture, language is the only element that ties all of culture into one package. Even if there are variations or deviations, the members of a linguistic community approximately share (1) and (2), together with (a) through (c). This sharing within the membership is precisely the reason that linguistic communication works. In other words, a shared culture makes it possible for the speaker to transmit information correctly and to predict more accurately other people's actions or reactions. This is undoubtedly what makes group cooperation on environmental adaptation possible, facilitating it and even permitting control of the environment. True communication cannot take place through the mere conversion of vocabularies and grammars from one language to another.
For human beings, therefore, the natural ecosystem is not the only significant one. It is the cultural ecosystem, the ecosystem in the broadest sense, including the natural one, which may be called the network of interactions making up the previously mentioned subjective "environment." However, since human language is deeply connected to the perception and classification of the environment and its manipulation-thought and expression-and makes up the core of culture, we must say that language itself is culture. We might even say right out that rather than living in a mere cultural ecosystem, humans live in a "linguistic ecosystem." Just so there is no mistake, the purport of "linguistic ecosystem" is significantly different from Einar Haugen's application of the sociolinguistic term "ecology of language" to the domain which deals with the speaker and his or her society (1972), or the "ecology of language" in which Harald Haarmann has tried to understand language in terms of its interactions with the environment in which it finds itself (1980).
Assuming that the natural ecosystem is contained within this human-centered linguistic ecosystem, we naturally cannot avoid saying that the endangerment and extinction of individual languages has the same underlying sources as and is linked to environmental destruction and the extinction of species. It may be appropriate to say that the root of these two deeply linked problems, which is undermining both biological diversity and linguistic diversity, is the same environmental hormones arising from the egoism of the world's "civilized people," their insatiable demands for material things and the primacy they place on economics. The recent international situation is forcing us to consider the unnerving possibility that the intensity and disruptive capability of these environmental hormones is on the rise.
The only ones who can put a stop to these two contemporary problems, maintaining both the health of the biosphere and the intellectual vitality of humanity (see 2.6), are human beings themselves. We have no option other than to depend on the uniquely human gift of language, the thought based upon it, and the rational use of these attributes in making plans for the future. The world's diverse cultures-or, in other words, the whole of the "linguistic ecosystems" that contain the biosphere-may come close to Krauss's concept of the "logosphere" (1996). It goes without saying that logos is language and human rationality. Again, to avoid misunderstandings, I would like to state that this "logosphere" does not refer to the "linguistic wars," as described by Roland Barthes, in which several theoretical explanations battle for supremacy (1986).
2.4. Language is culture, and culture, too, is infused through language. Even so, it seems possible to draw a line between the two, and indeed they are often compared in terms of language versus culture. Language has a wider scope for structural diversity and variation than nonlinguistic culture and is only loosely interrelated with culture. In other words, it has an autonomy that operates more or less at a remove from culture in the narrow sense. For this reason, we find that culturally simple communities, such as hunter-gatherers, have languages with extremely complex grammatical structures. I would like to note that it is by no means true that simple cultures correspond to simple languages or that complex cultures correspond to complex languages. This lack of correspondence makes it far from unusual for great diversity in linguistic patterns to be found in one cultural area.
In response to the question of where the difference between language and culture comes from, one answer may be that there is a functional difference between the two in their response to the environment. Language as an unadulterated form of communication that refers to nonlinguistic phenomena does not immediately act upon the environment, unlike culture, whose direct objective is ecological adaptation to the environment. In other words, language is functional only in an indirect sense, possessing so-called "indirectly functional" characteristics (Miyaoka 1996). If language is indirectly functional with respect to ecological adaptation and is only loosely interrelated with culture, it should be reasonable to assume that for that reason alone, language only rarely responds immediately to changes in the environment. Yet, since language naturally has the important function of communication, it is "directly functional" with respect to communication. It is especially obvious that sentences and syntax have to be directly functional.
Due to its indirect functionality in relation to environmental adaptation, language generally tends to lag behind culture. Therefore, when the indigenous language of a disappearing culture, which is likely to remain until the very end, happens to be lost, any fragments of the culture that happen to remain (ethnic clothing or performing arts), even those that carry a certain amount of symbolism of group identity, may be no more than the afterglow of a sunset. When a distinct culture that has been functioning as an organic whole loses the language in which the whole culture is infused, either it has already stopped functioning or the probability of its total collapse is high. In that sense, we can say that language is the last bastion of culture.
2.5. Language has another important function in addition to communication and cognizance. It is to be distinguished from pure communication, but sometimes overlaps with it. It is "directly functional" action in that it acts upon the environment directly or influences it. The most easily understandable examples are the world of Genesis: "God said, 'Let there be light,' and there was light," and the world of spells and enchantments, in which the word and the thing that it signifies are seen as one. The words in Genesis created day and night in the chaotic darkness of the world, and the words in a spell bring about change in the environment, or are believed to do so, and to that extent, they are directly functional. While spells are active attempts to affect the environment, taboo words represent a passive position of avoiding the effects of the environment. However, in more realistic situations, direct functionality is most apparent in judgments, commands, testimony, promises, apologies, the agitation of people involved in political movements, advertising, and other linguistic acts that bring about changes in the social environment. Also included are forced name changes of conquered people, poetic language, vogue language, and interactive phatic communication, which serves as the lubricant of human interactions.
Another direct function of language, one closely linked to the problem of endangered languages, and perhaps its greatest power, lies in its ability to create a group identity or "socialize" people, as Edward Sapir has written (1933). Whatever the size of the group and whatever kind of group it is (a family, a group of school friends, a generation, a gang of organized criminals), the mere act of sharing and using even a small bit of common vocabulary strengthens its members' mutual ties and sense of affinity and builds up a psychological barrier that outsiders cannot easily overcome. If a group speaks the same language, sharing a dialect or an entire language system, there is no reason for its group solidarity not to grow much stronger, given that sharing a language means sharing all the commonalities infused through that language. This is why language can often be a "badge" of affiliation with a specific community, and easily comes to be viewed as proof of social or ethnic uniqueness. This is the so-called emblematic function of language.
Why have most modern nations have called upon language, that is, their national language, as the force that unifies them? In recent years, why have minority ethnic groups throughout the world, even while calmly and logically downgrading the practical value of their own native languages in the modern world, intensified their self-awareness of the need for preservation? Or, in contrast, why have the Japanese in Hokkaido and the Korean peninsula or the European settlers in the United States, among others, treated language as the core of their efforts to assimilate the aboriginal inhabitants, using heavy-handed means of rooting out and eliminating the native languages of the conquered peoples? In the end, the view of language as a tool and prejudice and disdain towards minority peoples, especially preliterate ones, may be working together with the (unconscious) notion that eliminating the language that exists as witness to an ethnic group's uniqueness is a way of taking away the group's uniqueness and pride and is the shortest path to assimilating the group into the cultural unity.
The extinction of a language leading to the collapse of an entire culture and the loss of the group's soul (uniqueness) can be compared to aphasia, in which an individual loses the language that is so inextricably linked to perception and contemplation of the outside world. Severe loss of language caused by brain injury causes such damage that the person may even appear to have had his soul taken away and to have lost his entire personality. Every day, speech therapists are made painfully aware just how hard it is to recover language. We may say that, both for an individual and for a community, losing the language that is so deeply rooted in one's existence or having it replaced by another is a grave situation, and means a complete deracination.
The disappearance of a single language from the earth is not only a grave situation for the community affected or for its members. It just so happens that certain things are now being acknowledged as parts of "the world cultural heritage." It is certainly true that castles, shrines, temples, and other artifacts should be highly valued as symbols of the cultures (usually belonging only to the higher classes) of certain regions, countries, or eras. However, since language contains the whole culture made up of unique systems of perception and adaptations to the subjective environment, along with past experiences and knowledge, the extinction of a single language means a new loss for the human intellectual heritage. Some have even compared it to the loss of the Louvre. Furthermore, as nothing compares to language in shedding light on an entire culture and its details, I believe that each language may be called a part of the world cultural heritage no less significant than such examples of material culture as castles, shrines, and temples.
2.6. There is no doubt that the extinction of individual languages is a problem linked to the deterioration and collapse of the cultural ecosystem with language at its core, which is woven from the constant interactions between the environment and human beings-in short, the "linguistic ecosystem" that is most meaningful to humans. The ability of diverse individual languages and the cultures supported by them to coexist may be an indicator for the health of this ecosystem. It is highly probable that the linkage between continued linguistic diversity and the maintenance of human intellectual vitality may be no different than the linkage between biological diversity and the vitality of the ecosystem. The collapse of natural ecosystems brought about by environmental destruction and the rapid loss of biological diversity are sapping the vitality of the biological world, and the very existence of the human race as part of the natural world hangs in the balance. In the same way, it may be fair to say that the loss of linguistic and cultural diversity and the deterioration of the linguistic ecosystem sap human intellectual vitality and may lead to the deterioration of the human race as intellectual beings.
Observers in a variety of fields have expressed their recognition of the value of cultural diversity (by which I mean linguistic diversity). It was Nishida Kitaro who left us with the laconic observation that "Cultural differences make the world rich," (1940), and the linguist Yamada Yukihiro, writing in Kotoba no minzokushi (1996), stated, "As long as there is cultural diversity, human society is rich, blessed with flexibility, and overflowing with vitality." Even fields such as astronomy have contributed their observations: "Viewed in terms of the time-space scale that we call the universe, the homogenization of a civilization means the beginning of aging or deterioration," says Matsui Takanori. "Diversifying and giving rise to differences is the mechanism that maintains the dynamism of the system" (1994).
3. Endangered Languages and Linguistic Researchers
3.1. In recent years, minority ethnic groups around the world have begun to recognize language as a core component of their own existence and distinctiveness and to actively engage in efforts to revive and pass on tongues that have been fading away. However, decisions on what to do with a language, the purpose for or extent to which it will be used, and whether to develop a system of writing for it are solely up to the group of speakers of that language, regardless of their perceptions of the crisis of linguistic extinction and the meaning of cultural and linguistic diversity. The choices of the group have a certain inevitability and should be held as inviolate to outsiders.
In the case of the Yupik Eskimo language of southwestern Alaska, which I have been studying for many years, while some people have begun to regret that they did not teach their traditional language to their children under the English-only assimilation policy, many others seem to have begun to feel that the native tongue with which they grew up now belongs not only to the older generation but already to the past and that switching to English is the very path to stability and success. If anything, these people are actively abandoning their native tongue. There is little if any sentimentalizing over that which is about to be lost. The inclination toward or outright switch to English is more evident among younger generations; some children even pretend not to understand what their parents are saying in Yupik, thereby pressuring them to use English. Upon witnessing children, and subsequently even their parents, all flocking to English, some might say that parents' not talking to their children in their native tongue amounts to linguistic suicide, or that languages must be preserved as the hallmark of a people. But such remarks uttered by an outsider who has never experienced the pain of linguistic oppression will only ring hollow.
The decline and extinction of a language hinges on complexly intertwined political, economic, and social-psychological factors. For this reason the preservation and revival of a language is not something that can be controlled by so-called linguistic management or policies. The aspects that individuals or small groups can manipulate by themselves are limited. What linguists can contribute is likewise very limited. Any contributions researchers do make should, moreover, adhere to the premises that the preservation and revival of a tongue is to be undertaken by the choice and initiative of the speakers themselves; that they seek to draw on the expertise of linguistic specialists to preserve and revive their language; and that they have an understanding of the complementary roles of the outside specialists and themselves.
It is only on the basis of these premises that linguists should attempt to create a writing system based on phonemic analysis for those who desire one and take on the job of teaching and propagating it. They may also cooperate with and provide guidance to native speakers in compiling a dictionary and grammar, making educational materials (picture books, textbooks, and audiovisual aids) of various types and levels, training teachers, and developing a curriculum. Putting together dictionaries and grammars will be an indispensable element of efforts to keep endangered languages alive.
Cooperation of this sort is related to the issue of returning the benefits of survey and research results to the local people. A study undertaken without returning any benefits would represent a reversion to the "all take and no give" approach for which past fieldwork in various disciplines-not just linguistics-has been criticized. Already among some groups, bitter experiences have led elders who possess valuable knowledge and authority to refuse to give help. Although publishing results in academic papers and reports adds to a researcher's list of achievements and can lead to the conferment of academic degrees, these are of no use to local residents; if the results are used simply for the sake of advancing a linguistic theory, they will trample on the goodwill and the cooperation of the native speakers. In regions around the world, returning the fruits of such studies in a way that benefits the subjects has recently become at least a tacit goal of the research, and sometimes been made a condition for allowing the study to be carried out.
3.2. Compiling linguistically detailed and accurate records of near-extinct languages can figure prominently as one of the elements required for the preservation or revival of those languages. But that is not the only function of such work. It is in and of itself an important academic duty of linguistic researchers and represents a global contribution to the passing of humankind's intellectual heritage to future generations. The work basically consists of producing a comprehensive account of that language, compiling a grammar, a dictionary, and textbooks-a process that has been an important tradition in American anthropology since Franz Boas (1858-1942) built its foundations. This ideally also includes a detailed, systematic description of the grammar based on adequate phonological analysis, compilation of an exhaustive dictionary (including place names and other proper nouns), and the audiovisual recording of all types of linguistic works (including old songs, plays, proverbs, riddles, and plays on words) and a broad range of everyday dialogue.
Along with such documentation through fieldwork, it is also important to collect and make use of records compiled to date (field notes, sound recordings, and other materials). In the case of languages of minority groups that few researchers are familiar with and that are in danger of extinction, past research records are often left unorganized and neglected, gathering dust and facing the danger of being lost in obscure corners of museum repositories or the homes of deceased researchers' families. In addition to digging up such records, extracting linguistic data (folk glossaries, proper nouns, and so on) from among ethnological and folklore-related literature is another important task. With languages that are rapidly disappearing and about which little is known, such records can serve as valuable supplements to the analysis and recording of data obtained from remaining competent speakers when examined from a "field philology" perspective (as witness John P. Harrington's voluminous field notes). They can be more than sources of supplementary information, moreover, as it is not unusual for words, phrases, and parts of passages that were recorded two or three generations ago to suddenly bring back an elderly person's memories or clarify items that had been overlooked during interviews with informants. Digging up and collecting such past records and utilizing them in surveys requiring urgency is especially important for endangered languages about which there is little accumulated knowledge.
3.3. As touched upon in 2.1, some researchers see little value in the study of minor languages, and views regarding linguistic diversity vary, even among specialists. Some refuse to ascribe "pan-human" value to it; around the same time that the DNA model was announced (1953), there appeared those who claimed that linguistic diversity is but an incidental, surface phenomenon and that all that is needed to unravel language is to investigate the "genetic" structure of any one language, say English. Since English is under no threat of extinction, it can be carefully studied for centuries without worrying about shortages of empirical data.
On the other hand, not a few linguists believe that an overall understanding of language will become extremely warped if only one or two languages are made the objects of research. They maintain that gaining a grasp of overall patterns, including the delineation of universal principles, requires a body of accumulated research and analysis of as diverse a sampling of languages as possible. Minor languages that are headed toward extinction without ever having been sufficiently studied or recorded-especially those spoken in remote areas that are relatively undiluted by neighboring predominant languages-sometimes display features that defy generally accepted notions in linguistics. Such languages demonstrate how misguided the rush toward generalization can be and even compel us to fundamentally reexamine our assumptions. Encountering such exotic languages moves us to wonder how their speakers conceive of the world around them (their extralinguistic reality) and how their thoughts are patterned. Lexical and structural diversity not only offers glimpses of ethnically distinctive cosmologies but also shows the breadth of the ways in which the human mind is capable of perceiving the environment and of creating order out of what it sees. Many of these exotic languages are rapidly headed toward extinction in little-noticed corners of the world, however, and their unique linguistic features are being wiped out by major languages or lingua francas that are spoken nearby. I am overcome by an indescribable sense of sorrow, anxiety, and regret.
Endangered minor languages, many of whose lineages remain a mystery, are valuable not only for offering insights on questions of typology and universality but also providing data, unobtainable anywhere else, for historical studies. Considering the volume and quality of precious information they contain, it seems an irretrievable loss should the languages progressively decline and die out before many linguistic questions have been elucidated. Collecting as much of the data as can still be gained would thus appear to be a pressing task-even if, at times, only small bits remain to be gathered.
3.4. Every language has equal weight for the people who speak it and equal pan-human value as a cultural asset, but there is an inevitable disparity in the value of data that different languages can provide from the perspective of linguistic research. Here arises the highly delicate issue of priorities.
Factors to be considered include not only a language's level of endangerment (especially whether it is included in Category [1] above) and the volume and quality of past documentation but also its degree of genetic isolation. Even if one language dies out, if it has surviving near relatives or related dialects, there is hope of obtaining data that approximate those of the extinct language. But if a language without genealogical ties dies out, the keys to and knowledge of the unique patterns of that language group will be permanently lost. Given the race against time and the shortage of research funds, there is no choice but to give priority to these isolated tongues. In terms of both phonetics and grammar, there is no room for studies that are narrowly concerned only with gathering specific types of data out of theoretical or typological interests.
An enormous amount of time, untiring effort, and meticulous attention are needed to undertake an exhaustive study of a language-recording utterances, ascertaining the details and subtleties of its grammatical structure, and gaining an overall grasp. A major oversight in documentation could lead to a fatal loss. While interest in endangered languages is spreading internationally, time is very limited for earnestly and effectively studying existing languages, considering the speed at which they are declining and disappearing. Grasping the entirety and investigating the minutest details of a single language are surely tasks that cannot be completed even by a hundred researchers working for a century. The completion of even minimum documentation would take at least 10 to 15 years. The number of minority languages urgently awaiting survey and research is already quite high and is likely to keep growing in the coming years. And yet the number of those involved in such research is critically lacking. Especially in the North Pacific Rim, for instance, where endangered languages are most densely concentrated, there are very few-generally just one or two-linguists who are actively carrying on long-term fieldwork on any particular tongue. This is fundamentally different from languages like English and Japanese, which enjoy the attention of large numbers of distinguished researchers. More young scholars need to be fostered as soon as possible to carry out fieldwork in languages that are on the verge of extinction, not just in the North Pacific Rim but elsewhere as well.
4. Efforts by Japanese Linguists
4.1. Some years ago Uemura Yukio, the dean of Ryukuan study, wrote: "What sort of international contribution would be appropriate for Japan-a country that annually provides official development assistance of over $10 billion and that put out $13 billion for the Gulf War-in the world of linguistics, including the problem of endangered languages? Japanese linguists themselves have a professional responsibility to think about, debate, and forward proposals on this theme as a long-term issue spanning about 50 years."
This remark appeared modestly as a footnote to his 1995 article published in Gengo kenkyu, the journal of the Linguistic Society of Japan, so it does not seem to have attracted the attention it deserves. This was, however, a very significant proposal. One year earlier, an archival center for the world's endangered languages was established at the University of Tokyo's Faculty of Letters in response to a request from UNESCO. Since then, the Linguistic Society of Japan has set up a committee on endangered languages and held public symposiums in the autumns of 1998 and 1999 in an effort to boost public awareness of the issue of endangered languages and to strengthen the foundations of discourse thereon. In 1999 the National Museum of Ethnology in Osaka launched a joint research group to conduct preliminary surveys and research on human languages in danger of extinction. These initiatives were not focused on advancing research, but they have served to raise awareness of the urgent need for fieldwork on endangered languages and a system to coordinate these efforts. Uemura's suggestion has at last begun to bear small fruit.
Fortunately in 1999 the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science, and Technology designated "Urgent Investigation and Research on the Endangered Languages of the Pacific Rim" as a priority area, qualifying it for funding from the ministry's scientific research budget, and preparatory research began that fall. As of fiscal 2001, approximately 160 researchers, including graduate students and foreign scholars (collaborating with Japanese researchers), are engaged in fieldwork aimed at exhaustive quality documentation as well as research activities to back up this fieldwork. While linguistic documentation cannot be completed in a short span of time, it is hoped that the fruits of this endeavor will not only lead to academic records in published or recorded form but be returned directly to the local people as well. (See <www.elpr.bun.kyoto-u.ac.jp>. The letters elpr stand for "endangered languages of the Pacific Rim.")
In this research project, the Pacific Rim encompasses (1) the South Pacific Rim and Oceania, (2) the North Pacific Rim, (3) East and Southeast Asia, and (4) Japan. Australia and South America are included in (1), Canada and the United States in (2), and the dialects of Japanese and Ryukuan, as well as the Japanese of the World War II period that is still spoken abroad, in (4). The Ainu language falls under (2). There is a limit to the number of languages that can be studied in the field by Japanese researchers. With regard to languages spoken in and around Japan, however, we Japanese linguists feel a responsibility for the region. The Pacific Rim is home to a vast number of languages in danger of dying out, and those that need to be prioritized are, needless to say, the ones whose natural lines of transmission have been severed-in other words, the "moribund" languages that come under the first of Krauss's three categories-and those that are linguistically isolated from other tongues.
The task of undertaking exhaustive, quality documentation will differ depending on the language, region of the world, and volume of past data. But the basic goal is documentation that is as detailed as possible (even if truly exhaustive documentation is not attainable) of all aspects of the language, including its phonetics, grammar, lexicon, and texts.
Audio and video recordings of speech material are doubtlessly important forms of documentation, but recordings in themselves mean little for languages that are on the verge of extinction. What needs to be done without delay is the kind of work that can only be carried out while there remain competent speakers. Such informants or consultants can not only provide raw linguistic material but also, with the help of the speakers' native insights, work with the researcher to analyze the data and elucidate underlying rules and patterns. The dictionaries and glossaries, grammar sketches, and texts derived from such research can be used as teaching materials for passing on and reviving the language. Given budgetary and time restraints, we will have to tolerate some delays in entering the recorded material into electronic databases. On the other hand, the digging up and collecting of past survey materials (3.2)-and in some cases their publication-should be actively pursued where such data may be of use in conducting analysis and documentation requiring urgency.
4.2. If these plans are advanced smoothly, we can not only make an academic contribution by preserving records of languages as an irreplaceable human heritage but also make a tangible contribution to the lives of the speakers and the local people, who were hitherto simply subjects of research. In addition, empirical linguistics standards in Japan can hopefully be raised through the training of young linguists working in pressing areas, foundation building and the organization of a survey and research setup, and the spread and improvement of methods of data processing and database construction that are specific to linguistics.
Unlike languages like English and Japanese that have been the subject of a vast amount of past research, documentation of a language for which hardly any information is available takes a huge amount of time, effort, and money, especially when it comes to exhaustive, quality documentation. It is very difficult, though, to gain the public's understanding of this fact; it is not the sort of endeavor that will conclude with satisfactorily results with focused research spanning just a few years. We must press forward with long-term efforts.
About \110 billion was spent in Japan during fiscal 1999 for archaeological excavations, even engendering a "relics business" in the private sector. Many of these excavations are carried out before going ahead with public works projects or real estate development and are thus premised on rescuing buried cultural remains from destruction, but as long as the artifacts remain underground, they are not likely to disappear quickly, like languages. The study of languages-particularly those spoken by minority groups-is not likely to capture the public's interest and imagination like archaeological digs, but research of languages whose remaining speakers are already quite elderly is surely a more pressing task. We believe, moreover, that it is also no less important than the research of physical cultural assets given that each language is an irreplaceable compendium of the culture that has been nurtured by its speakers.
The amount needed to enable approximately 150 Japanese linguists to carry out fieldwork on endangered languages around the Pacific Rim is just a drop of the nation's ODA budget, or just a thousandth of the money spent to excavate domestic cultural relics. A delay in taking coordinated action can lead to an irrecoverable loss of cultural and intellectual assets. If we consider the time it takes to document, collect past records on, and analyze data for just one language, we realize the need for assistance-preferably from the national coffers-to enable long-term, continuous research.
Internationally speaking, the United Nations, and UNESCO in particular, was quick to express an interest in and respond to the need to preserve the languages of ethnic minorities. At the beginning of fiscal 1990 the United Nations began focusing on the problem of languages facing extinction, and it has since been deepening its involvement (see Aikawa forthcoming). The February 2001 Global Ministerial Environment Forum, organized by the U.N. Environment Program, issued a warning that the loss of language-which is intimately linked to the human environment and culture-is tantamount to losing a natural textbook. And in November, the UNESCO General Conference, held to commemorate the drafting of the UNESCO Constitution, adopted a Universal Declaration on Cultural Diversity, affirming the importance of respecting cultural diversity and declaring it to be the common heritage of humanity.
Countries with well-organized activities have included the United States and Australia, where projects have been spearheaded by both researchers and local speakers. Since the mid-1990s Terralingua, a nongovernmental organization, has been working to preserve linguistic diversity by drawing parallels with biodiversity. Financial support has been provided by, to cite a few, the National Science Foundation of the United States and such privately funded groups as the Ford Foundation of the United States and the Volkswagen Foundation of Germany. These organizations provide support to foreign researchers as well. Many non-Japanese linguists have shown interest in the research being conducted by their Japanese counterparts, and we should advance complementary cooperation with one another. Many Western countries have a much higher awareness regarding endangered languages, however, and we in Japan still need to prove ourselves in the eyes of Western linguists, showing that we are serious about contributing to the survey and research of languages in peril.
Finally, serious thought must probably be given now to coordinating or integrating our activities with those of the environmental conservation movement, which has already become a powerful force. Needless to say, this will require further efforts to broaden awareness that the phenomena of environmental destruction and dwindling biodiversity are closely linked with the loss of linguistic diversity. In fact, given the related nature and contemporaneousness of these developments, active efforts should be made to bring the two movements closer together.
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Any comments and suggestions to: omiyaoka@utc.osaka-gu.ac.jp
