Language is all around us. We hear it in our conversations, see it on our billboards, and navigate by the visual and verbal codes engrained in us from an early age. There is an argument made by the vast majority of Western philosophy that says humans are exceptional and independent of the rest of living beings, because we have this functionality: we have developed complex language to navigate the world around us. But the more closely we listen, the more finely we tune and hone our instruments of radical attention, radical presence, the more we realize we are not alone in speaking. There is a language to every living being. And thus, the death of forests, the death of any specie is also a loss of language. Looking just at the project of human linguistics, when we lose a language, when a language dies, there is the possibility we have lost deep knowledge about the world around us. As, witihin language, there are trillions of data points about the plants, the animals, the culture, the people. So revitalizing languages around the world is also an ecological project. 

In this essay, I argue that the death of language is deeply intertwined with the disconnection of people to place and space, more specifically, that of nature. As industrialization, colonization, and globalization (think: Thomas Friedman’s concepts of Globalization 1.0, 2.0, and 3.0) sever people from local landscapes, languages that encode knowledge within them about the world around them and those reciprocal relationships with the land itself disappear. The extinction of language is more than a cultural loss, it marks a severing of the human relationship with place, history, and deep time understanding. 

To make this argument, I pull in four writers in particular, referencing their works as a way to navigate the conversation. David Abram’s The Spell of the Sensuous, in particular, is a starting framework for me, as he argues that oral traditions root humans in reciprocal relationships with nature, and our use of non-oral ways of communication (namely, writing) that deviate from pictoral symbolizations of the world around us have made us speak to the world in a dramatically different way. David Crystal’s books Language Death and How Words Work help me make the argument that globalization, colonization, and global warming drive language extinction. I pull George Lakoff’s Don’t Think of An Elephant and Pierre Bourdieu’s Language and Symbolic Power back in to address the idea that language loss is not just about a language disappearing, it’s about framing, power, and who controls discourse. 

Some guiding questions I’m entertaining here are: (1) How does language emerge from human-nature relationships? (2) What role do colonization, globalization, and modernization play in language death? And (3) How does the loss of Indigenous and oral languages contribute to environmental crises? 

Contextualizing the Sources

First, I want to further contextualize David Crystal and David Abram’s works within this specific argument. Since I’ve previously written about Pierre Bourdieu and George Lakoff, independently, I’m going to focus specifically on setting up Crystal’s and Abram’s works for this particular argument. If you get to a place in this essay where the references from Bourdieu and Lakoff are lost on you, please refer to the previous posts for more information. 

In Abram’s book, The Spell of the Sensuous, a beautiful ode to our connection with the world beyond and around us, he argues that human language originally emerged from reciprocal interaction between humans and the more-than-human world, the wind, the rivers, the plants and animals, the landscapes themselves. Oral traditions sustained and still sustain a deep relationship with nature, whereas the development of phonetic writing distanced humans from embodied, ecological meaning. He writes, “The Greek alphabet severed words from sensory experience.” This abstraction carries through to modern Western thought, which relies on an objectification of nature, disrupting older forms of reciprocity and conversation with the environment. Abram explains, “Our most immediate experience of things… is necessarily an experience of reciprocal encounter – of tension, communication, and co-mingling.” The disconnection with the world around us is twofold: the first in our language itself, we are no longer in conversation with this sense of animacy. The second is that as we lose languages, the decline of oral cultures that still preserve this conversation with the world leads to a loss of ecological knowledge encoded in language itself. To quote Bourdieu on linguistic power, he wrote, “Language is not neutral – it is shaped by institutions that determine whose speech is authoritative.” 

Looking at Crystal’s books Language Death and How Language Works as background to the linguistic enterprise as a whole, we see that languages tend to die from three primary forces: colonialism, globalization, and political suppression. This loss follows a three-step process. The first is that the economic and social pressure are placed upon the minority, or dominated language, speakers to adopt the dominant language. The second is a realm of transitional bilingualism, with younger generations losing fluency. And the third is a full language shift, as the younger generations often identify themselves more with the dominant language, and multiple generations often feel shame surrounding their use of their first language. When we lose these languages, we lose a way of understanding the world, since many endangered languages hold environmental wisdom. After all, “96% of the world’s languages are spoken by just 4% of the people.” But, as Crystal points out, language extinction isn’t inevitable, there is a chance to revitalize through education, technology, and policy shifts. 

Contextualizing Language, Place, and Power

Language as an Ecological Act

As I’ve begun to elude in the prior paragraphs, language is an ecological act. As Abram writes, “Language functions not simply to dialogue with other humans but also to converse with the more-than-human cosmos.” Many Indigenous languages encode landscape features, weather patterns, and earthly rhythms as an integral feature of meaning and meaning-making. Where as many (if not most) Western, phonetic-based languages are severed from their relationship with the more-than-human, oral cultures are actively engaged in conversation with rather than about. 

A specific example of this can be found in the concept of songlines for the Aboriginal peoples and how it tracks directly to “deep time” memory. “To members of a nonwriting culture, places are never just passive settings,” Abram writes. Aboriginal songlines encode knowledge of surrounding environs with navigation, creating oral maps that describe the land through interconnected stories. Dr. Margo Neale, Senior Indigenous Curator and Advisor to the Director of the National Museum of Australia, explains songlines as “pathways or corridors of knowledge that crisscross the continent, laid down over millennia. At another level, they are the knowledge system which governs all aspects of Aboriginal life and society. If you’ve heard the expression, ‘Our stories or history is written in the land’, then that’s the kind of embodiment of the sense of how it works by reading the land.”

Indigenous knowledge systems, as seen in Aboriginal songlines, encode not only geographical and spiritual relationships but also scientific and ecological understanding developed over tens of thousands of years. As Alison Page, Indigenous scholar and designer, explains, “science and technology from an Indigenous perspective is totally what songlines are about,” containing “an incredible compendium of scientific data” preserved through oral tradition. She highlights how “the average person knew intricate knowledge about 400 plants per person,” including when they flowered, their seasons, their medicinal or poisonous properties, and how to prepare them—without a written record. This deep environmental awareness, she argues, enabled Aboriginal people to sustain themselves while spending only “15 hours a week” on subsistence activities, dedicating the rest of their time to “art and to connect with one another.” Yet, she points out, they were labeled as “savages” by colonial societies that now work 40-hour weeks and only enjoy nature on weekends through boating, camping, and fishing—activities Indigenous Australians had mastered as a way of life for 80,000 years. Margo Neale further underscores the sophisticated nature of these traditions, explaining that “songlines can be visualised as corridors or pathways of knowledge that crisscross the entire continent, sky and water,” acting as “libraries, storing critical knowledge for survival.” She also describes how rock art caves were “the first dome theatres,” where “the fire, the flickering firelight, the animating of the figures” created an immersive storytelling experience that preserved knowledge across generations. As Western science increasingly acknowledges Indigenous methodologies, there is a crucial opportunity to engage with these knowledge systems before the keyholders of such wisdom – and the languages that sustain them – are lost. Conversely, when land is stolen or desecrated, the stories that sustain that landscape must traverse a linguistic shift, changing how those who have known the land for tens of thousands of years interact with it. 

The Linguistic Collapse of Colonization

“Within 200 years of the arrival of the first Europeans in the Americas, it is thought that over 90% of the Indigenous population was killed by the diseases which accompanied them,” David Crystal writes in Language Death. And we’re not talking about a 90% decrease in population in the tens or hundreds of thousands but the tens of millions. Estimates put the population of the Indigenous at around 100 million people, pre-European colonization. Those 200 years later? The population of Indigenous groups was around 4 million. To understand that a significant quantity of individuals and communities were impacted is to see the direct tie between language extinction and imperialism, economic shifts, and forced assimilation. For those who were able to survive the impending wave of imperialism, they were subjected to the imposed languages by colonizers, immediately displacing Indigenous languages. As an example, we can look to Spanish and English replacing Quechua, Nahuatl, and other Indigenous languages in Latin America. Pre-Colonial Brazil had around 1,175 languages in 1500 CE. As of 2006, less than 200 remain. 

So how do languages get revitalized? How does a community breathe new life into the dying language? One crucial element is that the community has to want to revitalize the language. The Welsh Language Revival, in particular, has been successful in its initial phases in helping to bring back community ties to the language, with an added support from language policies in Wales. A recent article from the BBC in 2024 found Wales implementing 60 new policy measures to continue the push to stave off the decline of the language. 

The Ecological Consequences of Language Death

The Loss of Place-Based Knowledge

Many Indigenous communities encode traditional ecological knowledge (TEK) into their languages, distinguishing between multiple types of snow, rain, or sail, revealing a deep attunement to climate patterns. When languages die, entire ecological epistemologies vanish. The Yanomami language in the Amazon, for example, holds medicinal plant knowledge that modern science cannot (nor should not) fully replace. The Yanomami people of the Amazon embody a profound connection between language and ecological knowledge, with their linguistic traditions intricately weaving together classifications of flora, fauna, and environmental patterns. This rich tapestry of TEK is under severe threat due to illegal gold mining, deforestation, and governmental neglect, leading to environmental degradation and health crises within Yanomami communities. The encroachment of over 20,000 illegal miners into Yanomami territory has resulted in deforestation, water contamination, and a surge in diseases such as malaria, severely disrupting their traditional way of life. In response, the Brazilian government, under President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, has initiated operations to expel illegal miners and restore the Yanomami land, leading to significant improvements in health and a resurgence of traditional practices. However, the persistent threats of environmental destruction and cultural erosion underscore the critical need to protect indigenous languages and the invaluable ecological knowledge they encompass. 

Climate Refugees and Language Loss

Global warming, and the climate crisis, exacerbate linguistic erosion by displacing communities, leading to the abandonment of native languages. As sea levels rise, forests are stripped bare, and land becomes desert, communities are forced to migrate, and, in the process, native languages are abandoned. Pacific Island nations like Tuvalu are particularly vulnerable; with an average elevation of less than 2 meters above sea level, rising tides and increased storm surges threaten their very existence. The Tuvaluan language, deeply intertwined with the island’s unique ecosystem, faces endangerment as inhabitants relocate to countries like New Zealand, where assimilation pressures may erode linguistic traditions.  Similarly, the Takuu Atoll of Papua New Guinea confronts severe challenges, with its Polynesian-speaking population witnessing environmental changes that jeopardize both their land and linguistic heritage.  In Vanuatu, the erosion of local languages threatens the transmission of intricate environmental knowledge, such as “wind lore,” essential for agricultural practices and climate adaptation.  These examples underscore the profound link between environmental upheavals and the potential loss of linguistic and cultural identities, highlighting the urgency for integrated conservation efforts that address both ecological and linguistic preservation.

Emerging Terminology Reflecting Global Warming

As global warming intensifies, new terminology emerges to articulate the profound psychological and environmental shifts experienced by communities worldwide. The term “solastalgia,” coined by philosopher Glenn Albrecht, encapsulates the distress caused by environmental change in one’s home environment. Similarly, “eco-anxiety” describes the chronic fear of environmental doom, reflecting widespread concern over ecological crises. Another term, “climate crisis,” emphasizes the urgency and severity of current environmental challenges, moving beyond the more neutral “climate change.” These evolving linguistic expressions highlight the deepening connection between language and our collective response to environmental transformations, underscoring the role of language in shaping our understanding and engagement with the planet’s changing climate.

Framing, Political Power, and Who Gets to Define Language

The Politics of Linguistic Erasure

As I’ve explored in my previous writing, language is not neutral, instead, deeply political. As George Lakoff argues, the way language is framed determines whose reality is acknowledged and whose is erased. This has profound implications for climate discourse, where terminology is often manipulated to serve political and economic interests. A key example of this is the strategic shift from “global warming” to “climate change,” a move orchestrated by Republican strategist Frank Luntz in the early 2000s to make the issue seem less urgent. By softening the language, Luntz effectively helped delay political action and public outcry. The same tactics have been used to undermine Indigenous linguistic rights. Throughout history, colonial powers have rebranded Indigenous as “dialects” to delegitimize them, framing them as obstacles to progress rather than as rich reservoirs of ecological and cultural knowledge. 

Governments and corporations continue to weaponize language to shape discourse and policy. Terms like “natural resources” dominate legal and economic frameworks, reinforcing the commodification of nature, while Indigenous worldviews, ones that recognize rivers, forests, and lands as living entities, are linguistically excluded from governance structures. This linguistic erasure is not accidental; it serves to uphold systems of exploitation. Pierre Bourdieu’s argument that “language is not neutral – it is shaped by institutions that determine whose speech is authoritative” is critical here. The politics of language suppression is a form of epistemicide, the deliberate destruction of knowledge systems, one that is deeply entangled with environmental destruction.

Hypocognition & the Absence of Words

The linguistic concept of “hypocognition,” the absence of language for a concept, explains how gaps in vocabulary can prevent people from recognizing and responding to critical issues. This phenomenon is particularly evident in environmental law. In the US, legal codes mention “natural resources” close to 1,000 times, while the phrase “nature’s rights” doesn’t exist. This linguistic gap reflects a conceptual void: the dominant legal system lacks the framework to recognize ecosystems as entities with inherent rights. In contrast, many Indigenous languages embed relational understandings of nature, treating rivers, mountains, and forests as sentient beings rather than as commodities. 

The absence of language for certain ideas doesn’t just shape how we think, it shapes what we can think. As philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein argued, “the limits of my language mean the limits of my world.” If there is no world for the destruction of one’s homeland due to climate change, does that loss fully register? The rise of neologisms like “solastalgia” reflects an attempt to fill these conceptual voids, naming emerging experiences of climate grief. Similarly, legal movements advocating for the “rights of nature” signal a linguistic and ideological shift toward recognizing ecological personhood. Expanding our vocabulary is not just a semantic exercise; it is a political one – one that can reshape law, governance, and our relationship with the living world.  

Esperanto and the Myth of a Universal Language 

Esperanto as a Counterpoint

In contrast, I look to an artificial style of language, known by the name of Esperanto. Esperanto is a constructed international auxiliary language created in the 19th century by L. L. Zamenhof. The original purpose of the language was to create a politically neutral language, a universal second language that could facilitate communicate across cultural divides. This echoes the idea that Abram brings up in his book, in that “a largely pictographic script can easily be utilized, for communicative purposes, by persons who speak very different dialects (and hence cannot understand one another’s speech). The same image or ideogram, readily understood, would simply evoke a different sound in each dialect. Thus a pictographic script allows for commerce between neighboring and even distant linguistic communities – an advance that would be lost if rebuslike signs alone were employed to transcribe the spoken sounds of one community. (This factor helps explain why China, a vast society comprised of a multitude of distinct dialects, has never developed a fully phonetic script.)” 

Esperanto seems to be emergent in order to fill that cross-cultural communication gap. The irony is that unlike natural languages that evolve from human-nature relationships (and, in the beginning of language development, quite literally echo the sounds around us), Esperanto is rootless, lacking geographic, ecological, or cultural ties. In total, a true artificial language. While Esperanto never became a dominant spoken language, it has found a second life online and has organically developed its own traditions. Over the decades, Esperanto speakers have created literature, music, and even their own community customs, turning what was once a linguistic experiment into an evolving project. Digital platforms like Duolingo have sparked new interest in the language, with over 2 million learners, and Esperanto Wikipedia remains an active hub for its speakers. The internet has allowed Esperanto to flourish in niche communities, demonstrating how digital spaces can help sustain languages outside traditional geographical and political structures. Meanwhile, Indigenous and place-based languages are disappearing, despite their deep cultural and ecological significance. This leads to an interesting question: if a language designed to be universal struggles to gain traction, and as we see English becoming more and more a universal language, what do these movements suggest about the role of place and cultural heritage in linguistic survival? 

Beyond its linguistic ambitions, Esperanto was part of a utopian vision for world peace and international cooperation. Zamenhof believed a common language could help dissolve ethnic and national conflicts, promoting global unity. However, this idealism was met with resistance from global political powers; totalitarian regimes like Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union saw Esperanto as a threat, associating it with subversive, internationalist movements. Its suppression highlights how language is not just a tool for communication but also a battleground for political ideologies, reinforcing that linguistic survival is often dictated by power, not just practicality.

There is also an outstanding question if we will see a global lingua franca in my lifetime. Many experts are pointing to English as the response. Despite its complexity and irregularities, English has become the world’s de facto lingua franca, not because of its linguistic simplicity, like Esperanto, but due to colonialism, economic power, and cultural influence. This comparison underscores a key reality: language dominance is not determined by neutrality or accessibility but by historical and geopolitical forces. Unlike Esperanto, which was created with an idealistic vision of unity, English’s spread is a byproduct of imperialism, making it a stark contrast in how languages achieve global reach. 

Revitalization and the Rewilding of Language

Digital Archiving and the Technological Renaissance of Indigenous Languages

In the face of global language extinction, digital technologies have emerged as vital tools for preserving and revitalizing Indigenous languages. Initiatives like digital archiving, AI-driven language reclamation, and culturally-grounded education programs are at the forefront of this movement. For instance, the Smithsonian’s Recovering Voices Initiative collaborates with Indigenous communities to document and sustain linguistic and cultural traditions, creating accessible digital libraries and repositories that serve both educational and preservation purposes.

AI has also become instrumental in language revitalization efforts. Projects like NüshuRescue use AI to reconstruct endangered languages with minimal data, automating translation and expanding linguistic corpora to accelerate revitalization. Similarly, the development of a digital corpus for St. Lawrence Island Yupik provides a foundation for creating language technologies such as spell-checkers and educational applications, thereby supporting both linguistic research and community-based language learning.

In alignment with David Crystal’s perspective that “a world in which everyone speaks at least two languages – their own ethnic language and an international lingua franca – is highly desirable,” these technological advancements facilitate bilingualism and cultural preservation. The Hawaiian language, for example, has experienced a resurgence through digital education platforms and AI applications, making language learning more accessible and engaging for younger generations. These efforts not only safeguard linguistic diversity but also reinforce cultural identity and community cohesion. 

Rewilding Language

David Abram proposes that to reconnect with the more-than-human world, we must “rewild” our relationship with language, treating it as a living, participatory act. He writes, “To reconnect with the more-than-human world, we must relearn how to listen, speak, and think in ways that acknowledge non-human voices.” Efforts to reintroduce animistic and relational language structures into environmental discourse reflect this approach, emphasizing the interconnectedness of all beings. 

The Māori language movement in New Zealand serves as a compelling case study for such revitalization. Through legal recognition and cultural initiatives, the Māori language has been reintegrated into public life, education, and media, strengthening the bond between language, culture, and the natural environment. This holistic approach not only revives linguistic practices but also reinforces traditional ecological knowledge and sustainable living. 

These examples underscore the transformative potential of embracing both technological innovation and traditional wisdom in the revitalizzation and rewilding of languages, fostering a more inclusive and ecologically attuned global society.

Conclusion

The erosion of linguistic diversity is more than a cultural tragedy; it signifies a profound disconnection between humans and their environments. Languages are vessels of unique worldviews, ecological knowledge, and cultural identities. When a language disappears, we lose not only a mode of communication but also a distinct perspective on interacting with the natural world. This loss parallels environmental degradation, as both are consequences of globalization, colonization, and the marginalization of Indigenous communities. 

To counteract this trend, active participation in language revitalization is imperative. Supporting Indigenous-led initiatives is crucial, as they are best positioned to reclaim and teach their ancestral languages. As an example, in Australia, the government has allocated $11 million to teach endangered Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander langugaes in primary schools, aiming to integrate Indigenous languages into curricula and foster cultural pride among students. Similarly, the Pūnana Leo preschools in Hawai’i have successfully immersed children in the Hawaiian language, leading to increased academic achievement and cultural awareness. 

Technological advancements also offer promising avenues for preservation. Platforms like FirstVoices enable Indigenous communities to document and share their languages through interactive websites, ensuring that linguistic heritage is accessible to future generations. Moreover, the Master-Apprentice Langugae Learning Program pairs fluent speakers with learners to create immersive language experiences, effectively transmitting linguistic knowledge in a culturally relevant context. 

Final Thought

Language is not merely a human construct; it is a living, evolving entity that connects us to our past, our community, and our environment. The extinction of a language signifies the loss of entire systems of knowledge, including unique ways of understanding time, kinship, and ecology. As we face global challenges such as climate change and biodiversity loss, the wisdom embedded in diverse languages becomes increasingly vital. By revitalizing endangered languages, we not only preserve cultural heritage but also restore our connection to the Earth, fostering a more sustainable and harmonious existence. 

Research & Further Reading

For a deeper understanding of these issues and ongoing efforts in language preservation, consider exploring the following resources:

• UNESCO Endangered Languages: A comprehensive database and analysis of languages at risk worldwide.
• Ethnologue Language Endangerment Index: An extensive catalog of world languages, including assessments of their vitality and risk factors.
• Smithsonian’s Recovering Voices Initiative: A program dedicated to collaborating with communities to sustain and revitalize endangered languages and knowledge.

Engaging with these resources can provide valuable insights into the complexities of language loss and the multifaceted approaches required for effective revitalization.