07 Track 7

Review unit 4

Fluency Strategy: Reading Actively

Language Survivors

Page 217

Language Survivors

Currently, linguists estimate that there are between 6,000 and 7,000 languages in the world. Some experts have sounded the alarm that, by the year 2100, at least 3,000 of those languages could be wiped out forever.

With so many languages on the brink of extinction, the efforts of social activists, educators, government officials, and many others have converge to try to solve this difficult problem.

From their accumulated experiences, it is become clear that easy answers are hard to find, and the unique and complex situation of each language has to be taken into consideration if a language is to experience a revival.

The Hawaiian Language

The Hawaiian language belongs to a related but not mutually intelligible group of languages spoken by Pacific Islanders. It was the only language spoken in Hawaii until Captain Cook’s ships descended on the islands in 1778 and disturbed their peaceful isolation.

The Hawaiian language eventually developed a writing system, and it flourished under the Kingdom of Hawaii, which existed from 1795 to 1894. It is shocking to think that the number of native Hawaiian speakers has declined from about 500,000 when Captain Cook arrived to a mere 1,000 today.

There is good news, however. Hawaiians have adopted an idea from the Maori people called a “language nest.”

This is a preschool where children spend time with native speakers of the language. There has been a distinct resurgence in second language speakers of Hawaiian: from 8,000 in 1993 to 27,000 in 2003.

The Tjapukai Language

The Tjapukai languages spoken by the Tjapukai people. They inhabited the Kuranda region of northern Queensland, Australia, for 10,000 years.

When western settlers attempted to build a railroad through their land to connect the metropolitan areas of Cairns and Herberton, the Tjapunkai people fought back.

For this, they were forced to move off their land to give up their way of life, and to do farm work and hard labor. Their culture destroyed, their language soon followed, until only a few Tjapukai speakers remained.

In 1987, an educator named Michael Quinn, and Roy Banning, one of the last Tjapunkai speakers, joined forces to revive the Tjapunkai language. With the help of an artist, they created materials for language teaching and tried to get people interested in the dying language.

Their efforts paid off: many older Tjapunkai began to remember their forgotten language, while younger people started to take pride in their native tongue.

Then, in 2000 for the Tjapunkai were given land in a national park to live on. The resurgence of their language and culture has since been an extraordinary success.