Economic Success Behind The Extinction Of Languages?

It is being reported today that a study 'discovered' a trend between the economic growth of a country and the loss of minority languages. Who would have thought it? I had always believed that capitalism was so accommodating towards minorities, their way of life, and their culture. It is not like its history has been one of aggressive colonialism and slavery.

I would go further than the journalists reports* of the study suggest. It is clear that it goes far beyond just being economic conditions causing a decline of minority tongues, that global and national hegemonic systems, and their structures of control, are imposing a dominant language upon people. Something that was highlighted (only implicitly) by the researchers, but largely ignored by the majority of journalists reporting on it. In an interview one of the researchers stated that "as economies develop, one language often comes to dominate a nation's political and educational spheres. People are forced to adopt the dominant language or risk being left out in the cold - economically and politically". This is exactly how the hegemony operates, culturally and economically, it forces people to adopt its conditions by offering or allowing no viable alternatives.

The researcher then goes on to remark that, "of course everyone has the right to choose the language they speak, but preserving dying language is important to maintaining human cultural diversity in an increasingly globalised world". The researcher is ignoring (or at least not noticing) the obvious contradiction between the two halves of his statement, that the choice of language diversity has been effectively removed by the hegemonic class. It comes down to a simple choice between adopt or resist; between relative wealth or impoverishment. 

It is no surprise then that the rapid demise of minority cultures, expressed here through their language, are predominantly located within countries and areas which have already experienced significant economic development, or ones undergoing rapid development. It is the exertion of the hegemonic classes power over the subordinate groups, with aims to homogenise the populations, to create a single (but still divided) labour force capable of producing capital as efficiently as possible. This means that no divergence in language is encouraged. Schooling, propaganda, everything is produced in the language of the hegemonic class. It has one aim to encourage complicity with the classes objectives, and in order to seemingly benefit from the hegemony, the minorities must accept the dominance of their culture, their world-view, and their language. The loss of their native language and the adoption of a dominant one is important for the transmission of the hegemony's ideology. It is ensuring their codes, their meanings, are disseminated wholly amongst the population. 

So despite the researchers highlighting factors beyond economics that 'contribute' to declining language diversity, such as low populations, temperate climates (like the ones found in most advanced capitalist societies), and (although only briefly mentioning) educational structures of a country encouraging complicity with dominant languages, they fail to explicitly state the obvious cause for this loss of minority cultural markers (bloody Zoologists).

It is 'progress' towards a fully realised global hegemonic capitalist class that is systematically destroying language diversity and native culture. It is not simply because of 'economic success', low populations, or being in a nice, moderate climate.

The actual report of the study can be found here.

*They do briefly mention some other factors in the actual study.