VANISHING VOICES: The Extinction of the World's Languages.

• Author: KELLMAN, STEVEN G.
• Position: Review

VANISHING VOICES: The Extinction of the World's Languages BY DANIEL NETTLE AND SUZANNE ROMAINE OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS 2000, 256 PAGES, $27.50

"We have room for but one language in this country and that is the English language," proclaimed Theodore Roosevelt, "For we intend to see that the crucible turns out our people as Americans, of American nationality and not as dwellers in a polyglot boarding house and we have room but for one loyalty and that is a loyalty to the American people." Roosevelt's insistence on English monolingualism as the glue of national unity was made during an era of virtually unrestricted immigration, when a massive influx from southern and eastern Europe was altering the U.S.'s cultural identity.

At the turn of another century, Daniel Nettle and Suzanne Romaine lament how, throughout the planet, English and a few other tongues have annihilated their rivals. Recounting how the world's linguistic treasury has come to be depleted, Vanishing Voices is an impassioned polemic to halt the process before its too late.

Of the 5,000-6,700 extant languages, more than half will probably be extinct by the end of the 21st century. While Mandarin, English, Spanish, Bengali, and a few others are spoken by hundreds of millions, most languages have fewer than 10,000 speakers. Ninety percent of the world's languages are spoken by fewer than 10% of the population, and they are as endangered as biological species whose stock has dwindled.

Vanishing Voices examines how languages are born and warns of loss of population and forced or voluntary linguistic shifts, which lead to their death. It reviews attempts to revive some languages, including Hawaiian, Hebrew, Karaja, and Passamaquoddy.

Not only do Nettle and Romaine liken endangered languages to endangered species...