Small languages in the Information age: Strategies of survival

The "hysterical" & "apocalyptic" predictions of the impending extinction of 90% of the world's languages in this century are contested, arguing that the speed of language loss in the world today is not so disastrous & globalization & English influence are not the principal threats to small languages. Several cases from various parts of the world are examined to show that it is the pressure of dominant languages, mostly other than English, on local nondominant languages which provide the key to understanding why small languages vanish. Such situational pressures causing a large scale assimilation of small communities have roots much older than the modern process of globalization or the status of English as the international lingua franca. Four types of survival status of European small languages are distinguished, noting that the ecological conditions of these types are relevant not only in the European but also the worldwide context. However, it is the European continent that offers its own specific configuration of small languages according to this quadripartite typology: (1) traditional small languages, with language policy working in terms of a top-to-bottom promotion; (2) recent immigrant languages, with language policy as a response to a bottom-to-top pressure; (3) languages not participating in digital literacy but with chance of a top-to-bottom promotion; & (4) small languages without digital or traditional literacy. 17 References. Z. Dubiel