Why languages die (and why Spanish will be saved)

The world's leading language in terms of number of native speakers is Mandarin Chinese (920 million), with a huge influence throughout China, even in regions where other languages are spoken, such as Wu Chinese (from Shanghai), Yue Chinese (better known as Cantonese), Min Chinese ... In regions where access to education has been limited, Mandarin may be spoken poorly or not at all. In Tibet, some people speak Tibetan as their only language, and in Xinjiang, Uyghur. Chinese languages don't travel widely, although Chinese do, but they are rarely seen because they don't cultivate social life. Despite its economic potential, Mandarin lives apart. It is not a global vehicular language like English, or even like Spanish, and it is far from being one.

The fourth and fifth languages in the world by native speakers are Hindi (345 million) and Arabic (310 million). Both are fragmented into dialects, which is the natural path of languages, something that has always occurred when the inhabitants of a place cannot understand each other with their neighbors, especially when they are separated by borders.

Some Hindi dialects (more than thirty) are so distinct that they could be considered languages. Understanding is limited, except for knowledge of Standard Hindi, the only one taught in school, Khariboli, a variant that originated in the Delhi region and western Uttar Pradesh.

Arabic suffers the same fate: division into dialects . Although there is no accepted fixed number, they are usually classified into about seven groups with dozens of local variants within each. Egyptian Arabic, or Masri, is the most widely understood, but intelligibility is generally low. Social media and cinema improve comprehension. Standard Arabic, or Fusha (الفصحى), is taught in schools around the world, meaning something like the pure language. Although it is not anyone's mother tongue, it serves as a common code. It is used in the press, radio, television, speeches, documents, institutions, and so on. It is essentially inspired by Classical Arabic.

Chinese languages do not travel, although Chinese people do, but they are rarely seen because they do not cultivate social life.

Hindi and Arabic speakers can have two registers: the familiar one, any dialect , and Khariboli for some and Fusha for others , neither of which are widely spoken internationally. In any case, this is a temporary measure to maintain cohesion.

The second and third most spoken languages are Spanish (485 million) and English (380 million). The growth of English in all areas (population, culture, leisure, etc.) exceeds all expectations. We would have to add to the native speakers some 1.2 billion almost-native speakers because they have two mother tongues, their family language and English. And if we add those who more or less mumble when necessary or are studying it, we could reach around 2 billion , a quarter of humanity. It's not that the birth rate is increasing, but that humanity , pressed by international exchanges and the need to communicate, tends to use a common language in addition to its own.

We should add to the native English speakers about 1.2 billion 'almost native' speakers because they have two mother tongues: their family language and English.

Now let's look at the situation in Europe. All the languages of Spain , France, Italy, and the United Kingdom require their speakers to know another language, except for Spanish, French, Italian, and English. After two languages coexist in the same speaker, the next step in a slow evolution is the loss of one of them, the weaker. Thus, declining languages disappear in favor of those that grow. This is why Irish and Welsh weaken compared to English; Venetian and Sicilian compared to Italian; Breton, Alsatian, Basque, and Catalan compared to French; and Aranese, Asturian, Basque, and Catalan compared to Spanish. These last two seem to grow thanks to the constant injection of funds every time they are used outside the family or among friends. The promotion of Catalan or Basque, let's say it without blushing, does not align with a logic of natural development. If these aids were to end, they would be reduced to the natural evolution that pushes languages forward. And all this despite the fact that the only cultural and international projection of Basque and Catalan speakers is their status as speakers of Spanish , a language that overshadows all others.

The number of Internet users worldwide is around 75%, and the most widely used languages online vary depending on how the measurement is made, but all introspection agrees that English is in first place and Spanish is in second place, by far. Thanks to Spanish,Catalan and Basque speakers can navigate the Internet extensively. The next most used languages are Chinese, Russian, French, and so on.

On the social network Facebook (the most visited), on Wikipedia (the most consulted encyclopedia) and on YouTube (the most viewed video library) English and Spanish are the first languages, although always, of course, at a great distance from each other .

While the advances in economic globalization are significant, they are not far behind those achieved in other fields of human activity, such as migration, the increase in telephone contacts, the density of communication networks, the proliferation of international meetings, the multiplicity of interstate approaches and international organizations, the growing non-governmental human rights networks, environmental measures, humanitarian movements, development aid, the internationalization of social knowledge, and the new type of global interdependence.

The disappearance of languages contributes strongly to unification. There are more deaths than births because almost 90% of existing languages are insufficient in one way or another for the communication that every individual needs. The decline occurs in the generational change. As ambilingual status is achieved, the possibilities for communication increase, while the language in decline falls into disuse and is no longer transmitted. No one persecutes it, no one prohibits it, no one detests it; it weakens because young people, who take the initiative, usually choose the most useful language, which will also be the one they teach their children. And since it is legitimate for every speaker to be capable of communicating and understanding with their peers, the choice falls on the most advantageous, and the other is necessarily marginalized.

We could call it language death , with dramatic effect, but it would be less somber if we called it a breakdown in generational transmission. Weak languages are preparing for extinction while vigorous ones thrive. Yaghan, Akabo, Eyak, Taushiro, Wichita, Livonian … are some of the languages recently abandoned by their speakers.

No one pursues it, no one prohibits it, no one detests it, it weakens because young people usually choose the most useful one, which they will teach to their children.

Spanish, meanwhile, let's be frank, is the second most popular language for learning according to learning platforms like Duolingo and Babbel, followed by French and German. Unlike Chinese, Hindi, and Arabic, Spanish is an international language and isn't fragmented into dialects, nor is there any risk of fracturing. Spanish speakers around the world can and do understand each other in a language that's easy to understand, solid, resonant, and easy to articulate and memorize . Its expansion across the globe reaches every corner, and that's a strength very few languages share.

* Rafael del Moral is a sociolinguist specializing in world languages and the author of the 'Encyclopedia of Languages', 'A Brief History of Languages', 'History of Hispanic Languages' and 'The Battles of the ñ', as well as numerous articles in specialized journals.