Language death is a term used by linguists to describe the death of a language. Language death occurs when there are no living speakers of a language. Linguists even make obituaries for dead languages. That may sound silly but language death is a serious matter.

Language death can happen very easily and the U.S is a notorious language killer. Consider this scenario: A husband and wife migrate to the U.S. from another country. They speak, read, and understand their native language fluently. They learn English to assimilate into the U.S. They have children who grow up watching American television and who speak English. The children go to school where they only learn in English and live in English speaking neighborhoods. When the children grow up they can understand their parents’ native language but cannot speak it. When the children get married and have their own children they are unable to teach their children their grandparents’ native language so the language dies. So in just two generations a language has died.

“Okay, so what?” you may be thinking or even “Why should I care?” Well here’s something to think about.
Fact: Most countries in the world are bilingual or rather multilingual.
Fact: Most American born citizens are only fluent in one language.
Can you see what’s wrong with this picture? The U.S. is the oddball when it comes to multilingualism and I think we should change it and here’s why.

Learning a second language will help you learn about another country’s culture or possibly even your own culture. I am second generation Vietnamese and unfortunately do not speak Vietnamese but I can understand enough to get the general gist of what’s going on. One thing I’ve noticed about foreign born parents who came to the U.S. is that they do not really know how to teach their children their language. Personally, my parents complain all the time about how me or my siblings do not speak Vietnamese or understand Vietnamese values. They simply expect us to “get it.” I don’t think they realize we aren’t picking up their cultural values because we did not grow up immersed in them like they did.

I also believe it is even more difficult to learn about one’s culture if there are no other families or children of the same ethnicity around. I grew up being part of the only Vietnamese, actually only Asian, family in my city and now I regret not knowing more about my language or culture. Given the opportunity I would love to go to Vietnam and learn to speak and read Vietnamese and find out more.

I think a problem many Asian Americans have with leaning their parent’s language is racism. Around the Stony Brook campus I hear different languages being spoken all over the place and I think it is wonderful. Most often it seems it is the exchange students who are speaking their native language with each other.

I’ve noticed that Asian Americans on the other hand aren’t very fluent in their parent’s native language so they just communicate in English, and some even think it’s “uncool” to speak in another language. Perhaps they had a bad experience with racism. I have heard countless times “ching chong ching chong” by passersby on the street or classmates throughout school where I grew up.

Racism like that, and even worse situations, definitely had a negative impact on me. Growing up I had feelings of hatred towards my culture and wondered why my parents gave me such a weird and different name. Today I understand what happened and think it is a shame that ignorance and racism can lead to something like loss of culture or language. Sometimes I wonder, if I hadn’t experienced racism towards my race, would I know more about my culture and would I be fluent in Vietnamese today?

If learning about your culture doesn’t make you want to learn another language then consider this; multilingualism can help you get a job. You may laugh at a foreign student’s “broken” English but I bet English is their second, third or maybe even fourth language. Also, I bet you won’t be laughing anymore when they have a better job and are making more money than you because of their multilingualism. If you were the head of a major company would you hire a monolingual or multilingual person, given they had equal qualifications for the job? I know which person I would hire.

Now which person would you rather be, the monolingual or multilingual person? With the growing number of Spanish speakers in the U.S. there is even a demand for workers who can speak Spanish and English. Remember all those years in high school you spent learning Spanish, French, or Italian? Maybe consider putting it to use by continuing your study and becoming fluent at a second language.

I am not a linguist and yes, I may not speak Vietnamese but I am making an effort to learn and I think that all you ABC’s and ABCD’s and everything in between should be proud of your culture and make an effort to preserve it.