Muted: Capital and the Global Language Shift
By Eoin Burns
Article originally published in Rupture - ecosocialist quarterly, purchase the print version here:
A consequence of neoliberalism and the laissez-faire approach of free-market capitalism is the idea that in order to learn a language, there must be some economic benefit. Languages with more speakers, such as English, Spanish, or Mandarin, have more ‘value’ as they allow the broadest form of communication. Thus, within a global market, they can be used as tools to access new markets, unavailable to the average monoglot. In contrast, minority or endangered languages - which are seen to have less economic value due to their scope of communication - are only to be learnt as a hobby. Minority language revival efforts are viewed as a romanticised but ultimately hopeless attempt to keep the language alive against an increasingly interconnected world pushed by the ‘progress’ of global capital.
Due to this fact, and a complex mixture of other social and political factors, we are now seeing a global language shift in which communities across the world are becoming more linguistically homogeneous, with political repression, economic demands and cultural shifts all driving this trend. Every two weeks a language goes ‘extinct’ as intergenerational transmission is prevented and the last native speaker of the community dies.[1] Climate change has only exacerbated this, as linguistically diverse communities are forced from their homes due to climate devastation, consequently dispersing and isolating linguistic groups and inevitably alienating them from both their community and cultural identity.
The unfortunate conclusion of this is that when a language dies, its inherent communal value is lost. Quirks of speech, cultural insights into the world and nature, and connections to minority communities are lost. All for the trade-off that capital can expand globally and locally. Language shift operates primarily as a tool to alienate and force communities to accept external institutions and influences. Homogeneous cultures are more likely to agree with the dominant political ideology - capitalism - as new economic models are imposed. The institutions of capitalism are using the market value of language to destroy communities, both in the global north and south, as a method of imposing destructive capitalist practices to all reaches of the planet.
What causes a global language shift?
As previously mentioned there are multiple reasons for what causes a language shift. However, within the context of capitalism, there are two main reasons. The first is the disruption of linguistic communities through exploitative practices. In the Highlands and Islands of Scotland, the buying-up of local housing in traditionally Gàidhlig-speaking communities - such as Barra, Lewis, and South Uist - has priced locals out of living within their areas. Combined with a lack of economic opportunity, this disrupts the fabric of the local community and forces many younger Gàidhlig speakers into larger cities where the opportunity to speak their language is reduced. This is also being seen in Ireland, where economic devastation and out-migration of younger Irish speakers has created a more linguistically homogeneous society, as only 23% of families in the Gaeltacht are now raising their children primarily through Irish. [2]
““In the Northwest Amazon, 100% of all medicinal plant knowledge is restricted to languages on the brink of extinction””
Meanwhile, in the Global South, climate change has forced the breakup and disruption of communities along coasts. In Sulawesi, Indonesia, multiple linguistic communities have been forced together, promoting a linguistic shift as a mutually intelligible language is used as a means of communication.[3] This aspect of the shift is most worrying, as many languages in the Global South have important information that is necessary to understanding the natural world around us. In the Northwest Amazon, 100% of all medicinal plant knowledge is restricted to languages on the brink of extinction. In North America, endangered indigenous languages hold 86% of all unique knowledge on plant structure and maintenance. [4]
The second factor contributing to a global language shift is resource access. Languages take a lot of time and materials to learn which, due to a perceived lack of economic benefit, are next to non-existent for many minority languages. Resources to read, listen to and the ability to use the language are all major factors in how a person learns a language to which larger, more economically valuable languages have access. Activists have made attempts to bring minority languages into the modern age, and have been successful in translating books, websites, video games and other forms of media. This should be commended as a positive development, but due to the market needs of capitalism, they will never receive the same support as other ‘market viable languages.’ This reduces the ability to learn a minority or endangered language, thus contributing to its decline.
Even Irish, which is the national language and a major part of the education system of Ireland, does not receive the same technological resources as other major national languages. Many social media websites either have no or only partially translated versions of their website in the language. In addition, only one major phone company, Samsung, provides their operating system in Irish, largely due to reduced market demand for this provision. By allowing resource provision of languages to be thrown to the logic of the market, it reduces the ability of people to operate and learn a minority or endangered language, thus reducing the opportunity for revival.
Fighting Back
While the reality of the global language shift seems bleak, minority and endangered language communities have been fighting back against linguistic destruction and for the right to speak their language. In 2017 the North of Ireland saw a burst in linguistic activism against the background of attempts to reduce £50,000 in funding to the Líofa bursary scheme - a programme which aimed to give working-class Irish speakers the chance to travel to the Gaeltacht to practice and engage in their language. The Irish language community, backed by other civil rights groups and trade unions, gathered around the activist group An Dream Dearg and marched on the streets demanding not only the restoration of the Líofa scheme but also an Irish Language Act that would give further protection to the Irish language community in the North. [5]
This was repeated in Brittany in 2021 after the French Constitutional Court rejected a section of ‘Molac’s Law’, a bill which aimed to protect and promote minority languages by increasing immersive education and resources for regional languages. This mobilised thousands of activists from Diwan (Breton-speaking) schools across Brittany against the Court’s ruling. This action forced the French-speaking establishment to condemn the actions of the courts and forced the constitutional council to clarify further protections.[6] While the North of Ireland and Brittany are still lagging in providing protections to both their minority and endangered languages, the actions highlight how people power can force the capitalist establishment to accept language protection when necessary.
In fact the Global South has been further ahead in this fight-back as the right to language is tied up with anti-colonialism and destroying the structures that were imposed through imperialism. Ongoing since the 20th century, the process of decolonisation has been one of radical change and rights recognition, as postcolonialism should be ‘enriched and deepened by a rapid transformation into a consciousness of social and political needs.’ [7] Languages play a role in that rapid transformation. Mozambique, for example, promoted Portuguese as a post-independence ‘unifying language’ and argued that the bilingualism of native groups was tribalist and regionalist. However, since the 1990s, campaigns have been successful in changing the Mozambique constitution to recognise the inherent cultural and educational value of regional or minority languages.
Why should Ecosocialists be involved in fighting for Language Rights?
The Gàidhlig poet and socialist Somhairle MacGill-Eain, when discussing the devastation of communities in the Highlands and Islands, once commented: “I have been very sceptical of what might be called received history. The million people who died in Ireland in the nineteenth century, the million more who had to emigrate, the thousands of families forced from their homes in the Highlands and Islands - why was all that? Famine? Overpopulation? Improvement? The Industrial Revolution? Expansion overseas? You see, not many of those people understood such words, they knew only Gaelic. But we know now another set of words, clearance, empire, profit, exploitation, and today we live with the bitter legacy of that kind of history”. [8]
““When languages are perceived to be heading towards extinction due to minority status, it throws a vast amount of cultural heritage to the logic of capital””
MacGill-Eain’s commentary highlights why ecosocialists should care about language rights. The experiences of exploitation and communal destruction of those in Ireland, the Highlands and Islands and the Global South are all interconnected. When languages are perceived to be heading towards extinction due to minority status, it throws a vast amount of cultural heritage to the logic of capital. As ecosocialists, we need to champion the plight of these groups and to support their fightback against extinction, much like we would champion the cause of the environment or any other oppressed group. Ecosocialists should fight against the alienation of people and for a better world, where people can openly speak their language without repression or barriers.
Sources:
[1]
[2]
[3]
https://theconversation.com/the-impact-of-climate-change-on-language-loss-105475
[4]
https://www.sciencealert.com/languages-are-disappearing-and-they-re-taking-unique-medicinal-knowledge-with-them
[5]
https://www.belfastlive.co.uk/news/belfast-news/l-dearg-march-draws-big-13066305
[6]
https://globalvoices.org/2021/07/26/the-french-governments-u-turn-on-regional-languages/
[7]
See, Frantz Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth (1961).
[8]
https://movingimage.nls.uk/film/3141