The Anthropology of Extinction: Essays on Culture and Species Death

7. DYING YOUNG

143 INTRODUCTION A SPECIES APART FROM ECOCIDE TO GENETIC RESCUE TOTEM AND TABOO RECONSIDERED 7. DYING YOUNG PIDGINS, CREOLES, AND OTHER CONTACT LANGUAGES AS ENDANGERED LANGUAGES Paul B. Garrett The fact that a large and steadily growing number of the world’s languages are “endangered” has received increasing attention in recent years, in academic and professional forums as well as in the mass media. In general treatments of the topic, both scholarly and popular, a few case studies or anecdotes are typically used to lend an element of human interest and local color to the global statistics, which, though striking in and of themselves, are inevitably rather abstract. The languages chosen for this purpose tend to be relatively obscure and “exotic” ones: languages spoken by small communities in remote locales, sure to be very little known, if not entirely unknown, to the vast majority of readers, listeners, or viewers. The choice of such obscure languages is in many ways an effective strategy, particularly for the mass media, and particularly for those forms of media that rely heavily on visual images, such as magazines, television, and websites. Portrayals of “traditional” peoples and their ways of life emphasize the poignancy and human tragedy of language loss by linking it to loss in other domains: for example, loss of culturally distinctive worldviews, ancient cosmologies and ritual practices, ingenious subsistence strategies that enable humans to survive in “harsh” physical environments, and intimate understandings of local ecologies and biodiversity. Even in those treatments of language endangerment in which a particular language and its speakers are the main focus, some sort of universalistic perspective is almost always taken. One prominent theme that often emerges is that the presumed reduction of “diversity” in various domains, such as those mentioned above, is an unfolding tragedy in and of itself, whether seen from a broad humanistic perspective or a somewhat narrower scholarly perspective GENESE MARIE SODIKOFF 144 JANET CHERNELA TRACEY HEATHERINGTON GENESE MARIE SODIKOFF JILL CONSTANTINO MICHAEL HATHAWAY BERNARD C. PERLEY PAUL B. GARRETT (linguistic or otherwise). Another common theme is that the endangerment of languages is diagnostic of grave dangers facing not just those who speak them, but all of humanity, or all of planet Earth1 —and by implication, the reader, listener, or viewer and his or her own way of life. Taken together, these themes suggest both a fundamental equality and a profound unity among the world’s languages. It is presented as axiomatic that all human languages are equally valuable—not in practical or utilitarian terms, but in a more abstract or philosophical sense—and that each has its own unique place within a richly diverse but integrated whole that is ineffably greater than the sum of its parts. The “death” of any language, however “small” and obscure, is therefore an inestimable and irreversible loss; and the endangerment of any language is a matter worthy of everyone’s attention and concern. Or is it? My purpose here is not to critique either scholarly or popular discourses on the issue of language endangerment; there is little need, for insightful critiques of these discourses seem to be proliferating almost as rapidly as the discourses themselves. My purpose, rather, is to consider the exclusion (or, at least, the omission) of a particular category of languages from these discourses.2 Only very rarely are contact languages—those languages, commonly referred to as pidgins and creoles, that are historically known to have taken form in situations of contact among speakers of two or more previously existing languages (Garrett 2004; Thomason 2001)—even mentioned, much less focused upon, in discussions of language endangerment. But several of these languages have already met their demise, some quite recently, such as Negerhollands (a Dutch-lexified creole formerly spoken in the United States Virgin Islands), Skepi Dutch Creole, and Berbice Dutch Creole (both formerly spoken in parts of Guyana). Various others are currently on (or rapidly approaching ) the brink of “death,” such as Michif, Mednyj Aleut, Chinook Jargon , Trinidadian French Creole, Unserdeutsch/Rabaul German Creole, and Pitcairn/Norfolk Island English Creole. Meanwhile, numerous others, though in less dire circumstances at present, have far from certain futures: St. Lucian French Creole, Dominican French Creole, the English Creoles of the Central American coast (e.g., Miskito Coast, Limón, Bay Islands), Palenquero, and dozens more. Why should the precarious state of so many languages go virtually ignored in discussions of language endangerment?3 In a review article dealing with three recently published books on language endangerment, Mühlh...