ABSTRACT
We argued in chapter 3 that ‘language death’ is a metaphor that needs to be relativized in light of the fact that all (spoken or living) languages are involved in a continuous process of change. Nonetheless, it is also true that more and more languages are endangered in our globalized world. This is due to two main factors: first, the politics of nation-state building, with states typically promoting one language as the ‘national’ or ‘official’ language, while often repressing the languages of both indigenous and immigrant minority groups. Secondly, due to the spread of global languages such as English with ever higher instrumental value (see chapter 4), there are strong pressures on minority group members to drop their minority languages and to use instead the national or official language of the state plus a global language such as English.
