An indigenous language, or autochthonous language, is a

language Language is a structured system of communication. The structure of a language is its grammar and the free components are its vocabulary. Languages are the primary means by which humans communicate, and may be conveyed through a variety of ...

that is native to a region and spoken by

indigenous peoples Indigenous peoples are culturally distinct ethnic groups whose members are directly descended from the earliest known inhabitants of a particular geographic region and, to some extent, maintain the language and culture of those original people ...

. This language is from a linguistically distinct

community A community is a social unit (a group of living things) with commonality such as place, norms, religion, values, customs, or identity. Communities may share a sense of place situated in a given geographical area (e.g. a country, village, t ...

that originated in the area. Indigenous languages are not necessarily

national language A national language is a language (or language variant, e.g. dialect) that has some connection—de facto or de jure—with a nation. There is little consistency in the use of this term. One or more languages spoken as first languages in the te ...

s but they can be; for example, Aymara is an official language of Bolivia. Also, national languages are not necessarily indigenous to the country. Many indigenous peoples worldwide have stopped passing on their ancestral languages to the next generation and have instead adopted the majority language as part of their

acculturation Acculturation is a process of social, psychological, and cultural change that stems from the balancing of two cultures while adapting to the prevailing culture of the society. Acculturation is a process in which an individual adopts, acquires and ...

into the majority culture. Furthermore, many indigenous languages have been subject to linguicide (language killing). Recognizing their vulnerability, the

United Nations The United Nations (UN) is an intergovernmental organization whose stated purposes are to maintain international peace and security, develop friendly relations among nations, achieve international cooperation, and be a centre for harmoni ...

proclaimed 2019 the

International Year of Indigenous Languages The International Year of Indigenous Languages was a United Nations observance in 2019 that aimed to raise awareness of the consequences of the endangerment of Indigenous languages across the world, with an aim to establish a link between langua ...

"to draw attention to the critical loss of indigenous languages and the urgent need to preserve, revitalize and promote indigenous languages."

Disappearance

Indigenous languages are disappearing for various reasons, including the mass extinction of entire speaker communities by natural disaster or genocide, aging communities in which the language is not passed on, and oppressive language planning policies that actively seek to eradicate languages. In North America since 1600, at least 52 Native American languages have disappeared. There may be more than 7,000 languages that exist in the world today, though many of them have not been recorded because they belong to tribes in rural areas of the world or are not easily accessible. It is estimated that 6,809 "living" languages exist in the world today, with 90% having fewer than 100,000 speakers. That means that roughly 6,100 languages are facing a risk of eventual extinction. Some languages are very close to disappearing:

Forty six languages are known to have just one native speaker while 357 languages have fewer than 50 speakers. Rare languages are more likely to show evidence of decline than more common ones.

Oklahoma provides the backdrop for an example of language loss in the developed world. It boasts the highest density of indigenous languages in the United States. That includes languages originally spoken in the region, as well as those of Native American tribes from other areas that were forcibly relocated onto reservations there. The US government drove the Yuchi from

Tennessee Tennessee ( , ), officially the State of Tennessee, is a landlocked U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern region of the United States. Tennessee is the List of U.S. states and territories by area, 36th-largest by ...

to Oklahoma in the early 19th century. Until the early 20th century, most Yuchi tribe members spoke the language fluently. Then, government boarding schools severely punished American Indian students who were overheard speaking their own language. To avoid beatings and other punishments, Yuchi and other Indian children abandoned their native languages in favor of English.

In 2005, only five elderly members of the Yuchi tribe were fluent in the language. These remaining speakers spoke Yuchi fluently before they went to school and have maintained the language despite strong pressure to abandon it.Living Tongues Institute for Endangered Languages. "Disappearing Languages - Enduring Voices-Documenting the Planet's Endangered Languages." 2009. ''National Geographic''. 19 February 2009 .

The situation was not limited to Oklahoma. In the Northwest Pacific plateau, there are no speakers left of the indigenous tribal languages from that area all the way to

British Columbia British Columbia (commonly abbreviated as BC) is the westernmost province of Canada, situated between the Pacific Ocean and the Rocky Mountains. It has a diverse geography, with rugged landscapes that include rocky coastlines, sandy beaches, for ...

Oregon's Siletz reservation, established in 1855, was home to the endangered language Siletz Dee-ni. The reservation held members of 27 different Indian bands speaking many languages. In order to communicate, people adopted Chinook Jargon, a pidgin or hybrid language. Between the use of Chinook Jargon and the increased presence of English, the number of speakers of indigenous languages dwindled.

Other tribes of Native Americans were also forced into government schools and reservations. They were also treated badly if they did not become "civilized," which meant they were to go to Christian churches and speak English. They were forced to give up their tribal religious beliefs and languages. Now, Native Americans are trying to regain some of their lost heritage. They gather at "

pow-wow A powwow (also pow wow or pow-wow) is a gathering with dances held by many Native American and First Nations communities. Powwows today allow Indigenous people to socialize, dance, sing, and honor their cultures. Powwows may be private or pu ...

" to share culture, stories, remedies, dances, music, rhythms, recipes and heritage with anyone who wants to learn them.

In January 2008, in Anchorage, Alaska, friends and relatives gathered to bid their last farewell to 89 year old Marie Smith Jones, a beloved matriarch of her community. "As they bid her farewell, they also bid farewell to the Eyak language as Marie was the last fluent speaker of the language."

Learning

Hundreds of indigenous languages around the world are taught by traditional means, including vocabulary, grammar, readings, and recordings. About 6,000 others can be learned to some extent by listening to recordings made for other purposes, such as religious texts for which translations are available in more widely-known languages.

"Treasure language"

The term "treasure language" was proposed by the Rama people of Nicaragua as an alternative to

heritage language A heritage language is a minority language (either immigrant or indigenous) learned by its speakers at home as children, and difficult to be fully developed because of insufficient input from the social environment. The speakers grow up with a ...

, indigenous language, and "ethnic language" since those names are considered pejorative in the local context. The term is now also used in the context of public storytelling events. The term "treasure language" references the desire of speakers to sustain the use of their mother tongue into the future: Accordingly, the term may be considered to be distinct from

endangered language An endangered language or moribund language is a language that is at risk of disappearing as its speakers die out or shift to speaking other languages. Language loss occurs when the language has no more native speakers and becomes a "dead lang ...

for which objective criteria are available, or heritage language, which describes an end-state for a language for which individuals are more fluent in a dominant language.

References

Bibliography

* Frawley, William, & Hill, Kenneth C. (2002) ''Making Dictionaries: preserving indigenous languages of the Americas. Berkeley:

University of California Press The University of California Press, otherwise known as UC Press, is a publishing house associated with the University of California that engages in academic publishing. It was founded in 1893 to publish scholarly and scientific works by facul ...

. * Harrison, K. David. (2007) ''When Languages Die: the extinction of the world's languages and the erosion of human knowledge''. New York and London:

Oxford University Press Oxford University Press (OUP) is the university press of the University of Oxford. It is the largest university press in the world, and its printing history dates back to the 1480s. Having been officially granted the legal right to print book ...

. * Singerman, Robert. (1996) ''Indigenous languages of the Americas: a bibliography of dissertations and theses''. Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press * Wurm, S. A. & Heyward, Ian (eds.) (2001) ''Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger of Disappearing''. Paris:

UNESCO The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is a List of specialized agencies of the United Nations, specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) aimed at promoting world peace and security through international coope ...

Pub.

External links

Alaska Native Language Center (ANLC)Indigenous Language Institute''Austlang: the Australian Indigenous Languages Database at AIATSIS''The Society for the Study of the Indigenous Languages of the Americas (SSILA)Canadian Indigenous Languages and Literacy Development Institute (CILLDI)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Indigenous Language

Language Language is a structured system of communication. The structure of a language is its grammar and the free components are its vocabulary. Languages are the primary means by which humans communicate, and may be conveyed through a variety of ...