COMMITTEE: Human Rights Commission
(HRC)
TOPIC: Preservation of Linguistic Diversity
ROOM: 103
CHAIR: Galán
Zavala Adriana y Oropeza Sánchez Andrés
According to Ethnologue.com, there are nearly 7,000 languages spoken across the world today. Only a fraction of these languages (359) are truly global, spoken by millions of people. These include Mandarin Chinese, English, Spanish, and Hindi. The remaining 6,550 languages have a much more limited scope, and many are in danger of being lost entirely. To put the dichotomy in perspective, 94% of the world's population speaks 6% of its languages, while 6% of the world's population speaks 94% of its languages.
The Linguistic Diversity Index measures the diversity of languages spoken in a country. The scale ranges from 0 to 1. An index of 0 represents no linguistic diversity, meaning that everyone speaks the same language. An index of 1 represents total diversity, meaning that no two people speak the same language. No country has an index value of exactly 0 or 1.
The Linguistic Diversity Index can provide insight into the multicultural nature of countries. Some have high linguistic diversity because of their geographic position along trade routes. This is seen in the relatively high linguistic diversity in Kazakhstan, which was part of the Silk Road. Other countries have high linguistic diversity due to the presence of multiple, distinct ethnic groups, as seen in Bolivia, India, and Chad. Nations with low levels of linguistic diversity, such as Japan and Norway, are often culturally homogeneous.
The Linguistic Diversity Index measures the diversity of languages spoken in a country. The scale ranges from 0 to 1. An index of 0 represents no linguistic diversity, meaning that everyone speaks the same language. An index of 1 represents total diversity, meaning that no two people speak the same language. No country has an index value of exactly 0 or 1.
The Linguistic Diversity Index can provide insight into the multicultural nature of countries. Some have high linguistic diversity because of their geographic position along trade routes. This is seen in the relatively high linguistic diversity in Kazakhstan, which was part of the Silk Road. Other countries have high linguistic diversity due to the presence of multiple, distinct ethnic groups, as seen in Bolivia, India, and Chad. Nations with low levels of linguistic diversity, such as Japan and Norway, are often culturally homogeneous.
At least half of the world’s 6000 languages are expected to disappear over the next century; some pessimists suggest that by the year 3000 just 600 languages will be left. According to the American Summer Institute of Linguistics, there are 51 languages with only one speaker left - 28 of them in Australia alone. A further 500 languages are spoken by fewer than 100 speakers, and another 1,500 by fewer than 1,000 speakers. Most will be lucky to survive the next decade. Such accelerated disappearance has galvanised into action an increasingly vocal campaign to preserve 'linguistic diversity'. In an obituary to Carlos Westez, the writer Peter Popham warned that 'when a language dies' we lose 'the possibility of a unique way of perceiving and describing the world.' Despairing of the 'impact of a homogenising monoculture upon our way of life', Popham worried about the 'spread of English carried by American culture, delivered by Japanese technology and the hegemony of a few great transnational languages: Chinese, Spanish, Russian, Hindi.' The linguist David Crystal echoed these sentiments in a Prospect essay last year. 'We should care about dying languages', he argued, 'for the same reason that we care when a species of animal or plant dies. It reduces the diversity of our planet.'
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