A chara, - Ninety per cent of the world's 6,800 living languages are expected to disappear with the current generation. By applying internationally agreed criteria for classifying species extinction risk, a writer in Nature, the international weekly journal of science, has shown that languages are more threatened than are earth's remaining stock of birds or mammals.
The Irish Times is hardly likely to argue or infer that the global threats to biodiversity should be ignored and intervention be regretfully forgone because the cost in money terms is too great. Yet, in your articles and Editorial of June 20th, the thrust of your arguments is that playing our part in resisting the global threats to linguistic and cultural diversity is just too expensive.
Your expression of your views was prompted by the unanimous acceptance by the Dáil and Seanad of the Official Languages Act 2003 and the unanimous decision on June 13th of the EU foreign ministers to accept Irish as an official and working language of the European Union.
The objective of both measures is to correct to some extent the imbalance in social status of the Irish and English languages.
Status is important because it is the single most effective factor in determining the outcome of prolonged contact between two languages.
While the language choices made by some individuals can be motivated primarily by patriotism and a variety of other sentiments, the prime motivator in language choices made by communities and societies is comparative status. This is is the importance, as perceived by members of a society, of one language in comparison with another as an essential means to achieving their life goals.
It is also the sum total of what can be done with and through a language. The greater the number and importance of the functions of a language, the greater its status is likely to become and the more society will choose to acquire and use it.
The effects of the Official Languages Act 2003 and the EU recognition of Irish as an official and working language will be small but significant increases in the numbers and importance of the functions and therefore the status of Irish.
It will now be possible to do more with and through Irish than was the case in the past.
A consequence will be a reduction in the extinction threat to Irish. And if we are successful in fully using the opportunities now presented by those measures, we can inspire and assist others to make active interventions to boost the status of rare and endangered languages throughout the world. Saving Irish is an international duty.
One would have expected to find The Irish Times playing a more positive part. - Is mise,
MAOLSHEACHLAINN Ó CAOLLAÍ, Dún Droma, Baile Átha Cliath 14.