The Disappearance of Languages and Natural Bilingualism

Abstract

The disappearance of small languages occurs through an obligatory phase of collective natural bilingualism (i.e., bilingualism resulting from language contacts) and ends with the transition of the language community to a more widespread and promising language. The disappearance of languages is the most large-scale manifestation and realization of the desire of the language system for monolingualism; with individual natural bilingualism, this desire manifests itself as linguistic attrition. Mathematical modeling of the phenomenon confirmed the hypothesis about the instability of natural bilingualism: both the individual one, and the collective natural bilingualism providing «double» communication, are at the same time a phase of transition to monolingualism. Language keepers are monolinguals, therefore the main condition for the preservation of an ethnic language is the existence of a monolingual repository (e.g., a country where the majority of the population has one mother tongue). At the same time, monolinguals can have as many foreign languages mastered in a logical way. Optimal for the preservation of any ethnic language (not just a small one) is the monolingualism of preschoolers (indigenous language) and the introduction of the second, third, etc. languages at the school age in a logical way. Keywords: disappearance of languages, collective natural bilingualism, artificial bilingualism, language attritions, non-linear dynamics, mathematical modeling, unstable state, monolingual repository.