As a deaf linguist, slowing recapping the skill in linguistics and decided to share the blog with you all. Since the story about the Indigenous People Day several weeks ago was posted.

It is an excellent opportunity to learn about the extinct language (dead language) including sign language around the world. There are several other interests in the Endangered language (moribund language), Deaf sign languages including village sign languages, Auxiliary sign language and Signed modes of spoken words.

We, Linguists, researched over many years and wrote many articles through Universities and Language Institutes around the world. They notice the alarming rate of losing spoken/sign languages over many years and decided to save/preserve the moribund language even extinct language.

First of all – how the language evolves and when the language started?

I came across several persons who are:

• Dan Everett spoke on how language became evolutionary back to Homo erectus around two million ago.
• Mark Pagel suggests that language is a piece of ‘social technology’ – cooperation.
• Murray Gell-Mann spoke about the ancestor of language.
• Alex Gendler and his work – How Language Evolve? from TED

Here are the example language before spoken.

Earliest Egyptain hieroglyphs

Latin

Proto World existed was the first idea where the language may starting. (Note: the proto world is a proposed universal proto-language from which it is claimed all languages derive.)

Our language is the Austronesian family, and here is the diagram of the mapped languages.

Have a look at the Tower of Babel and in the etymology stated in the quote here. There was a lot of debate over this research, whether it is a fact or fiction over many years.  However several historians claimed the original language was Semitic language existed from Adam to the “Tower of Babel. One problem is why the writers of the Bible does not translate the other names which appeared to be the foreign origin?

The phrase “Tower of Babel” does not appear in the Bible; it is always “the city and the tower” (אֶת–הָעִיר וְאֶת–הַמִּגְדָּל‎) or just “the city” (הָעִיר‎).

¹ And the whole earth was of one language, and of one speech.
² And it came to pass, as they journeyed from the east, that they found a plain in the land of Shinar; and they dwelt there.
³ And they said one to another, Go to, let us make brick, and burn them throughly. And they had brick for stone, and slime had they for morter.
⁴ And they said, Go to, let us build us a city and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven; and let us make us a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth.
⁵ And the LORD came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of men builded.
⁶ And the LORD said, Behold, the people is one, and they have all one language; and this they begin to do: and now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do.
⁷ Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another’s speech.
⁸ So the LORD scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth: and they left off to build the city.

⁹ Therefore is the name of it called Babel; because the LORD did there confound the language of all the earth: and from thence did the LORD scatter them abroad upon the face of all the earth.

—Genesis 11:1–9^[6]

Over a million years ago, people like gathers, hunters, cave people stayed in one place and speakers of the same language lose contact with each other in the centuries after migration and gradually drift linguistically in different directions. The small group move away to another new land over the mountains or across the lakes. The small group of a family starting to speak a different language or become evolve new words when they encounter new plants, woods, animals they never see before.

Look at the sign language – no one know when or what is the earliest sign language?  The sign language has been more extended, or around the time of spoken language; however, no one knows precisely the sign language appeared. Imagine the gathers and hunters trying to communicate to other people they never met before. They use hand signals/interface in the way of sending the message across the massive bushes, on top of the mountains, or in great distances as they were interacting each other in new ways of communicating.

Fast forward to today.

There are about approximately 7117 languages (flux)  around the world, and we are learning more about the world’s language every day. BUT the roughy 40% languages are endangered with less than approximately 1,000 speakers around the world today. There are approximately 300 sign languages in use around the world while new sign language emerges through creolization, de novo and evolve new sign language through language planning. The possibility of losing many spoken languages and sign languages will become extinct by 2050, and we don’t know the answer.

The recently extinct languages are: –

• Aka-Sare, Aka-Bo, Aka-Kora, A-Pucikwar, (Andaman Islands, India)
• Tehuelche (Patagonia, Argentina)
• Nuchatlahit dialect of Nuu-chah-nulth (British Columbia. Canada)
• Klallam (Washington, United States)
• Livonian (Latvia: Kurzeme)
• Cromarty dialect of Scots Black Isle dialect (Northern Scotland)
• Pazeh (Taiwan: West Coast area)
• Cochin Indo-Portuguese Creole (Southern India – Vypeen Island)
• Nyawaygi (Northeast Queensland, Herberton to Herbert river, to Cashmere, Ravenshoe, Millaa Millaa and Woodleigh and east Tully Falls)
• Pataxó-Hãhaãi/Patashó (Brazil-Minas Gerais and Bahia states, Pôsto Paraguassu in Itabuna)
• Eyak (Alaska)
• Bidyara (Queensland, Tambo, Augathella, Warrego and Langlo, Australia)
• Osage (Oklahoma, United States)
• Akkala Sami (Kola Peninsula, Murmanskaya Oblast, Russia)
• Gaagudju Arnhem Language (Northern Territory plus Oenpelli, Australia)
• Sowa (Papua New Guinea – CVentral Province, north and west of Laua)
• Mesmes (Ethiopia – YeDebub Biheroch Biherese an Hixboch State, Gurage, Hadiyya and Kambaata area)

How did the extinct and endangered languages disappear and why?

More to come in Part Two.