Dying, Dead and Extinct Languages – Why Study Them?
Linguistic Imperialism We’ve seen fairly recent examples of this in Eastern Europe with the “breakup” of the former Soviet Union. Now splintered ethnic, cultural or linguistic groups are returning to the use of their individual lingua franca where once they were “forced” to use Russian as the language of communication, education and commerce. The same held true for the attempted take-over of the English-speaking Falkland Islands by Argentina which would have completely changed the language from English to Spanish by “official decree” – or force. This is a classic definition example of Linguistic Imperialism. Globalizational or Regionalization As the impact of one country’s economy and commerce expands to influence that of other countries in the same region, continent or linguistic family, globalization or regionalization extends its grip to assuage countries into the use of a lingua franca other than the official language(s) of the country. Initially isolated by racial, ethnic and geog
