GLOBALIZATION AND LANGUAGE EXTINCTION

Abstract

The spread of English Language worldwide is a threat not only to minority languages that have not found a way of being preserved, but also to linguistic diversity globally. Whereas the major languages in Nigeria, as is the case with their counterparts worldwide, are not experiencing similar threats because the critical mass of their speakers is not widely dispersed, for most minority Languages, the critical mass is not intact, but dispersed in pursuit of greener pastures and the children of the migrant population are elsewhere out of home speaking English as their first language and abandoning their mother tongue due to lack of immediate speakers of it. The arguments of this paper are that there is a natural law element as well as the language policy element to the effects of globalization on minority languages. It is a position paper which concludes that there are natural causes of languages death which no man has control over, like the death of its speakers, but there are also the political policy and human actions that cause language death. The latter is preventable and should be curbed. The paper suggests that appropriate measures should be taken to revitalize and preserve all languages under the threat of extinction.