29/08/2024
[FROM THE ARCHIVES (2021)]
For centuries, language has provided us with the proper means to communicate, converse, and build a sense of community. Similarly, as it has chronicled history, language has also provided us an avenue to better understand our past. In more ways than one, it has become a repository of knowledge, one that has woven itself into the fabric of a community’s culture.
To classify a language as endangered declares that there is a significant loss of speakers of the language and that the vernacular is no longer being passed to the next generation, signaling the potential risk of extinction. As of 2021, the Philippines has garnered a total of 45 “in danger” languages. Reports on these figures were based on the Expanded Graded Intergenerational Scale (EGIDS), a framework used to measure the vitality of a certain language with regard to its rate of being passed onto the succeeding generation. Languages that are at risk would score highly on the scale as these have a slim chance of being transmitted to the younger members of a community. While a vernacular is classified as extinct once it has fallen completely out of use by any living native speaker.
Read the full story: https://mediacommoner.medium.com/our-local-languages-are-dying-out-heres-what-s-at-stake-67e62984563f