A Critique of Language Preservation

I’ve been recently asked to review a draft paper on Philippine ethnolinguistics (study of how culture is reflected in language). Overall, it was well-written, but I found the conclusion a bit preachy.

My issue with it basically boils down to this question – should languages be fetishized at the expense of their speakers?

The author of the paper spoke with passion about:

• ethnolinguistics as “an urgent act of preservation and solidarity”, and
• languages as “repositories of profound knowledge and resilience”, “resources for healing, justice, and unity”, that reflect “centuries of lived experience”, “continue to guard these truths” and “to speak meaning into the future” so that “these voices endure for many hundreds of years more”.

Not wanting to be the proverbial Reviewer #2, I didn’t want to insist that it be reworked just because the author’s ideological agenda does not align with mine. But this part of the paper essentially represented language preservation activism and not a balanced academic evaluation of the field of ethnolinguistics (although lamentations about language death using some of the formulas above are not uncommon in linguistic publications). And so, I felt like it was warranted to complement it with a less rosy view of the matter – which I repeat here.

So here it comes – my take on a critique of language preservation.

The author seems to treat language preservation as an absolute value in itself. However, people stop speaking their native languages not only because of evil governments, corporations, or dominant ethnolinguistic groups encroaching on marginalized minorities’ rights.

More often than not, shift to another language is a choice of economic convenience.

Not to mention that individuals can have a variety of other motivations to move away from their first languages, such as looking for freedom from stifling cultural norms, relief from traumas of the past, etc.

It means that language shift is sometimes an act of agency, rather than merely a sign of passive victimhood.

I think linguists should not assume a prescriptivist position in this matter and impose their negative attitude towards language disappearance as a loss of irreplaceable linguistic data onto native speakers. Instead, native speakers’ attitude towards their own language, just like any other aspect of the linguistic reality, should be studied descriptively.

The author’s use of words reveals exoticisation of the object of ethnolinguistic study – it is presented as something necessarily ancient, that reflects the supposed “authentic core” of a culture.

In fact, language in its entirety is part of culture by definition.

So, recent developments in language are no less reflective of culture than older phenomena.

For example, the ubiquitous labels of group loyalty common in Philippine media and politics, such as the ones below, are very recent:

• kapuso,
• kapamilya,
• ka-clear,
• kakampink,
• ka-dds,
• factsnatics,
• CHELdren, etc.

And yet, a study on the connection of this linguistic pattern to the Philippine culture(s) would be no less ethnolinguistic in nature than Conklin’s study on Hanunoo colors.

In addition to these, languages are also repositories of superstition, prejudice, and xenophobia. All values – both positive and negative – find their reflection in the language. An ethnolinguistic study on racist or homophobic slurs, or, say, the language of political bardagulan (‘shitposting’) – for example, dilawan, pinklawan, dutertards, mga lenlen, etc. – is easy to imagine.

What I find harder to imagine is that the author would like to see such language perpetuated for centuries more.

Arguably, just like not all traditions deserve to be preserved (e.g., female genital mutilation, aka female “circumcision”), not all linguistic elements should necessarily be saved from the “risk” of “being silenced”, as the author put it.

And yet, no negative aspects of linguistic heritage are mentioned in the paper.

A similar point is made in this 2015 article on endangered languages by James Harbeck, a blogger with some linguistics background:

“In any event, if speakers no longer want to speak a language, who are we to tell them that they are wrong? It’s their language, not ours, and it’s paternalistic of us to expect them to do as we wish just to satisfy our need for authentic cultures to fill the pages of magazines. We may be well justified in wanting to preserve the language for future generations; members of a culture that has lost its language sometimes feel the loss sharply, and may even seek to regain the knowledge. But it’s still theirs to keep or lose, not ours. And if they don’t want their culture to become our museum piece, that’s their right.”

It’s not always a tragedy when a language element falls out of use, or when a person stops speaking a language, or a child does not learn their parent’s language. It depends on people’s circumstances. And this fact needs to be acknowledged more often.