At a pace no less fierce than that of the destruction of the environment and the extinction of species of flora and fauna, human languages too are beginning to vanish all over the world. According to one calculation, by the end of the twenty-first century, half of the approximately 6,000 languages spoken in the world today will have died, and fully 95 percent could be extinct or be on the way to extinction.
The International Decade of the World's Indigenous People (1995-2004) has spurred strong interest in the issue of endangered languages, and at the urging of the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization in particular, concrete action has been launched in various regions around the world. In 1994, responding to a UNESCO request, Japan established an international center within the Faculty of Letters at the University of Tokyo to gather information on the world's endangered languages (the International Clearing House for Endangered Languages attached to the Department of Asian and Pacific Linguistics). Through its endangered languages sub-committee, meanwhile, the Linguistic Society of Japan has begun efforts to boost public awareness through, for example, the open symposium on endangered languages it held in 1998 and 1999. The 1997 enactment of the Ainu Culture Promotion Law also served to spur moves toward revival of the Ainu language. However, the Japanese public has been slow to recognize endangered languages as a crisis issue on a par with environmental destruction and the extinction of plant and animal species; moreover, Japan's linguistic researchers also lag far behind their counterparts in Germany, the United States, and other developed countries in terms of formulating realistic responses to the problem.
Each human language is an irreplaceable part of the heritage of the human race. We can define culture as the particular perception (worldview) of a language group (people) in regard to the natural, societal, and supernatural environments of which the group members are themselves a part, as well as that group's behavioral patterns, or strategies for adapting to elements of the natural environment. The definition can also extend to values and semantics, and even to the objects of material culture, all of which are generally linked directly to a people's world view. In this sense, culture can be seen as one system for comprehending the world. This "culture" is deeply imprinted on all facets of language, and indeed on its smallest details, penetrating language's every pore. Language is deeply infused with culture. A culture cannot be demonstrated as a single, coherent unit without reference to its linguistic aspect. The languages of each particular group are therefore a form of world cultural heritage on the same level as castles, temples, and shrines, and the ongoing extinction of numerous languages-in the majority of cases, leaving no adequate records of them-is a permanent cultural loss for the human race.
A language is also proof of the unique nature of the group using it. Completely wiping out the languages of minority groups has long been a central pillar of forced assimilation policies. Recent moves by minorities to preserve their tongues reflect their emerging awareness of how dangerously close such languages are to decline and extinction.
Vulnerable languages that are currently endangered are generally those on which research is proceeding far too slowly or not at all. Given the high value and sheer volume of the scholarly information that each of these languages offers toward the resolution of linguistic and ethnological issues, their extinction can only be an irretrievable academic loss.
While languages are disappearing all over the world, world language distribution is extremely uneven in geographic terms. The densest clustering of vulnerable languages is in and along the Pacific rim (which includes the Pacific itself), the focus of this research project (see Figure 1).
Figure 1:
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The range depicted here includes a number of languages whose families have not been identified and many types of languages unknown elsewhere in the world. Despite their high academic value, languages that have been comprehensively recorded and documented are in fact very few. Most languages on which not enough information (or no information at all) has been gathered are currently rushing toward extinction. There is very little time left for effective research of living languages. Rather than waiting until it is too late, we need to push forward with surveys and research. Not only are languages themselves in danger, but the bulk of documentation from linguistic studies undertaken to date (field notes, sound recordings, and other material) remains unorganized and could become scattered and lost. Such past documentation is invaluable particularly for surveys and research on those languages where little documentation has been built up. This material too needs to be gathered together without delay,although this has surely been done, e.g.,for Alaska..
While endangered languages are certainly attracting much greater attention now, the problem is that languages disappear extremely quickly, while surveying and recording a single language takes an enormous amount of time. On top of this, while there are a vast number of languages crying out for surveys and research, there is a critical lack of researchers worldwide. Indeed, there are certain regions where no or little attempt has been made at systematic surveys or linguistic research. This research project-which encompasses virtually all actively engaged Japanese researchers-recognizes the need to launch work immediately, and the participants are taking up that responsibility, fostering young researchers along the way.
The specific objective of this research project is to engage in systematic and swift measures to document those weaker languages of Pacific Rim minorities where research has been lagging, at the same time retaining a long-term perspective. Priority will be placed on languages that children are no longer acquiring as their mother tongues, a key sign that their continued existence is in question. The actual research process will be as follows.
The achievement of these goals will provide the world with both scholarly results and deeper insight into our human heritage. At the same time, the information obtained could become one tangible return for those minority peoples who were the subject of research.
There are many other issues to consider, though. The life or death of a language hinges on a number of complex factors that are enormously difficult to control. In addition, while some groups are proud of their languages as evidence of their uniqueness, and strongly wish to preserve and revitalize them, others favor a swift transition to a more widely used tongue. It is controversial whether the active preservation of languages and the direction of their transition are issues with which linguistic researchers can or should meddle. For those peoples who do wish to preserve and revive their languages, however, linguistic recording and research obviously should represent an important contribution to the creation of the necessary educational environment for language preservation, including the creation of writing systems, production of educational materials, and training of teachers. In fact, there is no shortage of groups in this region seeking the involvement and cooperation of linguistic researchers for these very reasons.
When this research project was designated as Specific Research on Priority Areas by the Ministry of Education, Science, Sport, and Culture in September 1999, thus becoming eligible for grants from the Ministry, efforts were originally restricted to preparatory activities by the management unit. As of next fiscal year (April 2000 to March 2001), three-year projects will be launched on planned research topics (around 35 in all) and publicly solicited research proposals. Applications for both types will be accepted once again in fall 2000. Projects will take the form of focused linguistic surveys and research (Type A) or cross-disciplinary research (Type B) on theory, methodology, and information processing, intended to back up Type A efforts. A total of seven topics have been selected according to region and research content (see following chart).
Overseas linguists can join the project by forming a group with a Japanese researcher who works on the same (or a close) language. Contact should be made to the group director or the head (first listed) of each research.
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Type A: Surveys and recording |
Type B: Theory and information processing |
A01: South Pacific Rim |
B01: Methods
of documenting endangered languages |
* A04 includes Japanese spoken abroad. The Ainu language will fall under A02.
