Acceso usuarios
Raja Ram Mehrotra
Perhaps nowhere eise in the worid is theproblem oflanguage endangerment so great äs in India and, unfortunately, very little effort has been made to protect and preserve these languages. As many äs 153 classified and 289 unclassified languages in the country have a total number of Speakers in the ränge ofone tofive, according to the census report. Thispaper identifies the endangered languages andplaces them in thefollowing categories: extinct languages, languages in the process of becoming extinct, and languages threatened by extinction. The minority languages, particularly tribal languages, are more prone to extinction. Besides analyzing the causes of language endangerment, the paper emphasizes that language loss is not inevitable if appropriate measures are taken in time. When a language dies, its death forbodes the death of the culture, world-view and aspirations of a speech Community.
