Language endangerment degree in Mexico

Introduction

In this R Notebook, the data, which was gathered from the website of the Kaggle Extinct languages, will be analyzed and visualized. The aim of this R notebook is to provide insight to the reader about the Language endangerment degree in Mexico and the world.

The UNESCO endangerment classification categorizes languages as:

Vulnerable: spoken by most children but may be limited to specific domains (e.g., home).

Definitely endangered: no longer learned as a ‘mother tongue’ in the home by children.

Severely endangered: spoken by grandparents and older generations; understood by the parent generation but not spoken to children or among themselves.

Critically endangered: the youngest speakers are grandparents and older, and they speak the language partially and infrequently.

Extinct: no speakers at all.

It is important to see how the endagerment degree looks in the world, so we can observe how it looks in Mexico.

On average, every two weeks a language dies in the world and with it thought, culture and a way of understanding the world. According to UNESCO data, 43% of the 6,000 languages spoken in the world are in danger, more than 200 have become extinct over the last three generations and 538 are currently in a critical situation. Globally, the majority of endangered languages belong to indigenous peoples. In Latin America, it can be seen that native languages are severely threatened.

Mapping languages grouped by Endangerment Degree

The first thing I had to do was to install the necessary R packages and then load them: dplyr, ggplot2, maps, etc. Those will help me to work with the geographic data.

cols<-c("brown4","darkgoldenrod3","blue","mediumvioletred","darkolivegreen4")
cols_m1<-cols[factor(lang_data$endangerment_degree)]
map("world", fill=TRUE, col="lightgrey", bg="lightblue", ylim=c(-60, 90), mar=c(0,0,0,0))

points(lang_data$longitude,lang_data$latitude, col=cols_m1, pch=16)
legend(x=-50,y=-30,legend=paste(rep(c("Definitely Endangered","Critically Endangered","Extinct","Severely Endangered","Vulnerable"),times=1)),
                             col=rep(cols,times=1),pch=16,bty="0",cex=0.5,pt.cex=0.7)

What can we see?

In this visualization of the world map, we can see that America, especially South America, has a large concentration of endangered languages. Latin America is one of the regions with the greatest linguistic diversity in the world. According to UNESCO, in the region there are 248 languages that are considered seriously endangered and in a critical situation of extinction: Argentina, Belize, Bolivia, Brazil, Costa Rica, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Uruguay, Venezuela and the one I want to emphasize is Mexico since it is my country. For that reason I decided to use the same mapdata library to see in which regions of Mexico these endangered languages can be observed.

Language endangerment degree in Mexico

library(mapdata)

elang_mex<-lang_data%>%filter(country == "Mexico")
cols_m2<-cols[factor(elang_mex$endangerment_degree)]

map("worldHires","Mexico",  col="white", fill=TRUE)
points(elang_mex$longitude, elang_mex$latitude, pch=19, col=cols_m2, cex=0.7) 
legend("topright",legend=paste(rep(c("Definitely Endangered","Critically Endangered","Extinct","Severely Endangered","Vulnerable"),times=1)),
       col=rep(cols,times=1),pch=16,bty="0",cex=0.5,pt.cex=0.7)

What did I find?

The result I obtained from this visualization of the map of Mexico is that the majority of these languages are concentrated in the south of the country, this is because in Latin America, some of the indigenous languages are shared by several countries, so the proximity of Mexico with countries that share a border such as Guatemala and Belize, as well as with the proximity of some Caribbean islands, shows us that a language can be spoken in these different regions, but that it is still not saved from being at risk of disappearing. It is curious to observe that in the north of Mexico there are almost no endangered languages, they definitely exist but normally these are from people who emigrate to the north for better job opportunities. I also think it is related to the proximity to the United States, I live in the north and I can confirm that there are no indigenous communities nearby.

CONCLUSION

In conclusion, visualizing the mapping of language endangerment degrees in Mexico and worldwide, based on the UNESCO classification, holds significant importance. These visualizations provide a comprehensive and accessible representation of the state of various languages, offering insights into the vitality and risks they face. Understanding the distribution of languages across different endangerment categories, from “Vulnerable” to “Extinct,” allows for a nuanced comprehension of linguistic diversity and the potential loss of cultural heritage. For linguists, researchers, policymakers, and communities, this information serves as a valuable resource for formulating informed strategies for language conservation and revitalization. The visual exploration facilitated by RStudio not only enhances our understanding of language dynamics but also contributes to raising awareness about the urgent need for language preservation efforts, making it a crucial tool for those invested in the preservation of linguistic and cultural richness.

Personal reflection

I decided to create geographical maps because it allowed me to tell the story of endangered languages in Mexico in a visual and easy-to-understand way. With R Studio, I could show on a map where these languages are spoken and how they are distributed throughout the country. Additionally, I could customize the maps based on what I wanted to highlight. It was interesting to see how some areas exhibited a higher risk of extinction than others. In summary, using R Studio to create geographical maps was an incredible experience to narrate the story of endangered languages in Mexico in a clear manner.