Vincent Nouyrigat, editor-in-chief of the magazine “Epsiloon” explains how Australian biologists analyzed the distribution of languages in the world, and found that islands played a decisive role.
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Linguists had already noted that small island territories – those smaller than Jamaica (about 11,000 km2) – are home to nearly 20% of the world’s languages, while these islands represent less than 1% of the world’s land surface. To give you an idea, there are 140 different languages in Vanuatu, for a population of only 330,000. In order to understand the phenomenon, these biologists analyzed the linguistics of more than 13,000 islands, and they finally understood how islands foster diversity.
A fairly fair parallel can be made with animal or plant species. Darwin had clearly observed this in the Galapagos: islands favour the emergence of new species, because these organisms which land on a new land evolve genetically on their own, due to their geographical isolation. We then speak of endemic species, that is to say exclusively linked to this place.
The same mechanism is at play for languages: Australian researchers have identified some 630 endemic languages spoken only on islands, or 10% of the world’s languages. Of course, other historical, cultural or technological factors come into play for humans: plants or animals often move passively, while the invention of the canoe allowed homo sapiens to colonize the most isolated Pacific islands. But we still see that the further the islands are from the continents, the more endemic and unique the languages used are in the world.
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Are these languages threatened with extinction? No more than those of the continents, the study reveals, which is rather reassuring. However, we must not lose sight of the threats weighing on the world’s linguistic diversity, with the standardization of lifestyles: out of approximately 7,000 languages spoken today, the latest estimates predict that 1,500 could disappear by the end of the century – currently, a language disappears approximately every 40 days.
These isolated spaces, these ends of the world, often heavenly, therefore constitute a precious refuge for human language. One more reason to take care of the islands.