Are dying languages worth saving?

Delegates at the Trinity College Camarthen conference explain why endangered languages should be saved using nine different languages.

About 6,000 different languages are spoken around the world. But the Foundation for Endangered Languages estimates that between 500 and 1,000 of those are spoken by only a handful of people. And every year the world loses around 25 mother tongues. That equates to losing 250 languages over a decade – a sad prospect for some.

This week a conference in Carmarthen, Wales, organised by the foundation, is being attended by about 100 academics. They are discussing indigenous languages in Ireland, China, Australia and Spain.

“Different languages will have their quirks which tell us something about being human,” says Nicholas Ostler, the foundation’s chairman.

“And when languages are lost most of the knowledge that went with them gets lost. People do care about identity as they want to be different. Nowadays we want access to everything but we don’t want to be thought of as no more than people on the other side of the world.”