 Deepti says: The book Limits of Language by Swedish linguist Mikael Parkvall is a sort of languages-only Guinness Book of Records, listing everything that’s large, small and otherwise interesting about the manifold manners of human speech and associated forms of communication. One item deals with the world’s most linguistically diverse countries, and is illustrated with this map, of the world’s ‘linguistic superpowers’. One of the reasons that Papua New Guinea has so many languages is because the land is so rugged that communities are physically isolated from one another and their languages diverge over time. The same landforms that isolate human communities also isolate pockets of local ecology, which fuels the biodiversity. So it may be fair to say that the linguistic and biological diversity have a common origin in the landform. So much for Babel  176 languages in United States! Is that a clue or what. A clue to what? The list includes languages like Tlingit, Chimakuan, Maiduan, Tsimshian, Luiseño, Karuk, Haida, Caddoan, Algic, Digueño, or Pomoan. If that doesn't seem familiar to you, how about Inuit, Menominee, Navajo, Aleut, Cherokee, Algonquin and Nahuatl? Most of those 176 are what's left of the around 300 languages spoken north of Mexico before Europeans arrived. Few of these languages have robust communities; Navajo is one of the largest, with about 150,000 speakers. Many linguistic communities have shrunk to figurative handsful, in extreme cases going no further than the elder generations of a few families, with numbers not even reaching double digits. The Yaqui language commu... The problem with many different languages spoken is communication. We need more communication and less talking. Look at our media. Mostly talking, not much communication. I don't see the value of many languges unless it is just cultural. A common language that everyone knows would help us get along better in this world which is sorely needed. What language should that be? Well, mine of course, heh, heh. |
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