Language is what ties us together and what spreads us apart. It’s because of language that we are able to communicate, and express ourselves. We use language everyday for various tasks. We use language to buy things, to read things, to understand eachother. Even before we had “languages” we still had language. Body language, writing, drawings etc. Language has many benefits and it allows us to be more efficient in communication.

Whilst language helps us in almost every was possible, Language comes with a few downsides. Language possesses the ability to include, exclude, represent and misrepresent. An example of language excluding is the barrier that language puts between individuals and groups. It’s common for people to feel a strong sense of disassociation to others when with people of a different language to their own. Having this barrier between us can stop us from being exposed to new cultures, values and beliefs. Exclusion also takes place in France, they want to stray away from including other languages in their own, so they create french words that carry the english meaning. This is a clear example of exclusion and how it can directly affect people. This means that because of language we have learnt to associate with people who speak the same language and avoid others who don’t, because of this imaginary barrier language puts between us. But this works vice-versa, language can also allow us to connect with people in so much depth, before language, communication was hard and not advanced enough to communicate about many things we can now. This allows us to feel like we are all connected and included. Language can also be perceived to mean different things to different people. In a call center in the UK, when people have issues then it’s very common to use different accents when communicating with the person. The call center says how when they use a more posh sounding accent the people seem to be more acknowledgeable and they feel a sense of trust. This means that using a different accent can literally build a sense of trust even though it is the same person.

While language is thriving, there are many languages that are endangered and many that have gone extinct. There are more than 6,000 languages that are facing extinction, 150 of these being from Europe. This is largely due to urbanisation. “When people move from rural areas to the cities they need Spanish in order to get jobs and education; there is no alternative. The people who push for language revitalisation tend to be the more educated people who are bilingual.” Because language is such a large part of people and their culture, when their languages go “extinct” and “linguicide” people often feel like they are losing a large part of their culture.

Endangered languages are everywhere, however it’s rare that we are exposed to them. A language that is currently endangered is Limousin, it’s a language spoken in France and it has about 400,000 speakers, meaning that it is potentially at risk. Limousin is a dialect of the Occitan language, spoken in the three departments of Limousin, parts of Charente and the Dordogne in the southwest of France. Almost everyone who speaks Limousin use French as their official and cultural language. Because of the large majority of French speakers, Limousin speakers know and understand french because it’s practically a standard in France. Some reasons why the Occitan dialects are endangered are due to the fact that the language has not advanced and adapted into modern society since the middle ages, however the language is currently being changed and there are many clear signs of the influence of the French language on the dialec. They are constantly moving closer and closer to the French language meaning that eventually the language will probably die out. Another problem with the language is that there isn’t much being done to stop the decline in Limousin speakers.

 

“Did You Know Limousin is at Risk?” Endangered Languages, www.endangeredlanguages.com/lang/10461.

“Occitan Language.” Encyclopedia Britannica, www.britannica.com/topic/Occitan-language.

Williams, Martin. “The Case for Language Learning: Seven Big Issues Facing the UK.” The Guardian, 21 Apr. 2015, theguardian.com/education/2015/apr/14/seven-language-learning-uk-multilinguilism.