How Oceania is Encouraging Linguistic Diversity — And Why It Matters

Think of all your favorite books, movies, songs, and stories from your first language. Now imagine if you were the only person left to understand them. This is part of what happens when a language dies. In her chapter “Language vitality and linguistic diversity: The situation in Oceania,” Dr. Eve Okura Koller discusses what can be done to revitalize a language and why exactly we should care.

According to the Catalogue of Endangered Languages, there are 533 languages in Pacific/Oceania that are listed as at risk, endangered, severely or critically endangered, dormant, or awakening.

Dr. Koller brings a unique perspective to this data by focusing on language isolates. A language isolate is “a language that is not related to any other known language.” There are 104 living isolates. Fifty-four of them are from the Pacific/Oceania. Three of those isolates are entirely safe. “This is significant, as there is only one other safe isolate in the world, in Eurasia (Okura 2018: 362).” One theory proposed is that because the languages are geographically isolated, they avoid language contact.

So what is unique about Oceania that keeps their languages healthy? When people stop using a language,it can become dormant or die. Conversely, to keep a language alive, one needs to increase the number of spaces where that language is used.

Immersion programs throughout all levels of education have been implemented to revitalize language. In New Zealand, Sāmoan communities created daycares where all caregivers speak in the chosen language. This model was then adopted by the Māori people, who gave them the name kōhanga reo (language nests). Now they are in place in countries across the world. This model is continued in K-12 immersion schools, as well as some university immersion programs, although those are rarer.

Using a language across different types of media can help revitalize it as well. New Zealand has Māori language television and radio. Hawaiʻi has Hawaiian language radio, and the Apple TV series Chief of War includes both English and Hawaiian dialogue. That being said, most academic journals about Oceania are currently published in English.

At a governmental level, the use of indigenous languages as the official language of each country varies. There are some that have a native language as the official one, some that have European languages, and some that have both. “Vanuatu and Papua New Guinea are unique in that they each include a creole as an official language.” The ability to use a language in an official capacity (such as bilingual announcements on the public bus system in Hawaiʻi or the ability to speak Hawaiian in court) is another aspect of a language’s survival.

But why should we care about linguistic diversity? First, according to UNESCO, the right to speak your native language is a human right. Speaking a heritage language is associated with better mental health among younger generations. There are educational benefits to attending immersion schools.

Dr. Koller further argues that “the survival of the human species and intellectual evolution is benefitted by diversity of thought, and likewise, diversity of language as it is the vehicle for thought.” When we lose a language, we lose the diverse and incredible ideas that were born with it.

Doctrine and Covenants 90:11 says, “For it shall come to pass in that day, that every man shall hear the fulness of the gospel in his own tongue, and in his own language.” As disciple-scholars and linguists, it is our divine responsibility to further the gospel in every language. We are called to take the time to understand all of God’s children. Linguistic diversity is a gift, not a hindrance, to the gathering of Israel.

Read the full chapter here.