Today is the UN’s International Mother Language Day which is observed every year to promote linguistic and cultural diversity and multilingualism.
There are a great number of threats to the existence of languages. With around 6,000 world languages, the vast majority (95 per cent) are spoken by only five per cent of the population. This means that most languages are spoken by only a very small number of people, so any destruction of these speakers’ habitat, livelihood or culture could send a language towards endangerment, and possibly extinction.
The consequences of climate change are vast for small islands and atolls, with low-lying areas becoming uninhabitable due to rising sea levels. However, there are also much wider effects of climate change that motivate indigenous people to move away from their homelands. Higher average global temperatures cause increases in climate variability, meaning rainfall patterns, temperature and cyclones become more variable and less predictable. With a major weather event, the fresh water on a small island or atoll can be contaminated. Thus, although these areas may still technically be inhabitable, growing crops and maintaining a consistent fresh water supply becomes increasingly difficult.
To escape from these hardships, many people choose to migrate. Migration caused by climate change is estimated to reach 200 million by 2050.
Migration itself is not necessarily a factor in language loss. However, when a language is not a dominant one within a community, pressures on the language are exacerbated, with negative perceptions of the language and inequalities between speakers leading to the decline of the vernacular and threatening its vitality.
The Pacific is home to a third of the world’s languages, with around 1,200 Austronesian languages and 840 Papuan languages. The Pacific faces a new threat, which is unique in terms of the world’s languages: environmental destruction of atolls and islands causing migration of people, and the subsequent loss of language and culture. Let’s examine two examples.
Halia is an Austronesian language spoken by 2,500 people in the Carteret Islands – six small islands 86 km from the mainland of Bougainville Island. Because of the atolls’ very small land area (0.6 km2) and low elevation (1.2 m above sea level at its highest point), sea level rise is a major issue. Talks of relocations, and several attempts for mass migration, have occurred since the 1970s.
Halia is also spoken by an estimated 17,500 people in the area of the mainland chosen for relocation. This makes the situation unique, in that the climate-caused migration allows the Carteret Islanders to move to land where their language is spoken natively. As such, while the islands are in danger of uninhabitability, the language itself is less under threat due to its existence on the mainland.
In contrast, Tokelauan is an endangered language spoken by about 1,500 people as the dominant language in the Tokelau islands – three atolls which have a combined area of 12 km2. The risk of climate change here has been deemed critical since the 1990s. Sea levels have risen, and there has been an increased frequency and intensity of extreme weather events like cyclones, which threaten the existence of the atolls themselves.
Today, more Tokelauan speakers (totalling around 2,500) live in New Zealand than on the atolls themselves. The migration of this language to the more stable landmass of New Zealand is a trend that will only continue with the decreasing inhabitability of the atolls. However, there is little policy for the protection and maintenance of the language, with the responsibility for language maintenance sitting mainly with the communities themselves.
Some countries, such as New Zealand, are better placed to provide a haven for climate refugees in the Pacific than others. Tokelau is a New Zealand protectorate, and all Tokelauans automatically receive New Zealand citizenship, meaning migration policy to and from the atolls is already sanctioned.
However, for a country like New Zealand where there is extensive policy covering the indigenous language Māori, policy is not fully enacted to protect the languages that are not indigenous to New Zealand. The policy makers’ job is very sensitive – they must strongly address the indigenous language due to its endangered status, but there must also be an attempt to protect languages that are imported through climate change migration.
In other Pacific nations, even the infrastructure to support climate refugees is problematic. The relocation site for the Carteret Islanders is in the Autonomous Region of Bougainville, which itself is dealing with major government upheaval, having recently voted in a referendum to become independent from Papua New Guinea. There is ineffective socioeconomic planning for the relocated islanders, and under the current legal framework, Bougainville remains an autonomous region, reducing its power to provide land for the refugees.
Climate change affects a wide variety of social and cultural issues. For the first time, we highlight the influence climate change has on languages. Much of the research is still in its infancy; the few case studies outlined here show how the relationship between policy, languages and climate change migration is a complex one. Our hope is that our research sows the seed of a debate among policy makers so that indigenous languages are considered as important to protect as habitats, cultures and livelihoods
Jason Brown is an Associate Professor in the School of Cultures, Languages & Linguistics (Te Puna Reo) at the University of Auckland (Waipapa Taumata Rau). He has worked with endangered languages and indigenous communities throughout his career. John Middleton is a Ph.D. candidate in Linguistics at the University of Auckland (Waipapa Taumata Rau) and a researcher with the Tokelauan language and community.
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