Irina Cabral
Group 110, English Studies
Discuss the importance of saving minority languages with reference to Scottish Gaelic and,
optionally, another European minority language. You should comment on issues such as how
minority languages may be saved from extinction, and the benefits and drawbacks of different
approaches to trying to save such languages.
Introduction
In recent times, the preservation of minority languages has become an important issue to
address. Society used to ignore the richness of a language including culture, history and voices.
Minority languages are diminishing because people used to consider such languages without
any values. The extinction of a language is not only the vanish of simple words, the desappear
of a language has an impactic in many other factors such as identity and culture (Gao Honghna,
2015)
Moreover, the education of language of power such as English or French in schools are raising
the rejection of teaching minority languages. This rejection is actually affecting the way people
perceive their identity.
In this paper, it will be discussed the importance of protecting endangered languages using as an
example the Scottish Gaelic language and other European minority languages. Moreover, it will
be argued the benefits and drawbacks of saving minority languages and ways to encourage
teaching these languages to save them of extinction.
Body
To begin with, according to Endangered Languages Protect, a half of the 7,000 spoken
languages in the world are in danger of disappearing. Nearly 2,500 languages face extinction
becacause the number of their speakers are very low (Oguz, 2021). The disappearance of a
language could contribute to a loss of an entire culture, values and identity of minority language
speakers. Continuing with that, language is an important way of expressing and comunicating
thoughts and the environment. Course and Cole (2021) states that the Scottish Gaelic is a
language tied to the wildlife, throughout the article we can realize the importance of the gaelic
culture for maintaining the marine environment and also how language is related with nature.
Considering this idea, the extinction of the Scottish Gaelic could contribute to the loss of useful
knowledge and history.
From another angle, prominent languages and the current fomentation of bilingualism at schools
are diminishing the idea of promoting an education into minority languages. Focusing in this
idea, minority languages has less recognition in society and are usually forgotten due lack of
linguistic feedback. This issue not only is about lack of appretition, but also ignorance and
miseducation are rooted among minority languages. The death of a language is provoked in
most times by prejudices, the shame and miseducation of speaking an endangered language are
common among minority speakers and this lead to not teach a language in the future.
Researchers have evaluated that fomenting a plurilingualism environment at a young age helps
childrens to learn more about the history and richness of a language. Besides, education into
minority languages supports the idea to keep a language relevant in current times.
Education should ensure that younger generations learn about minority languages and increase
awareness to preserve and revitalize them. Technology and other resources as music or social
