Enough obstinacy: it is better to let a language die than to let freedom die

Lately there has been much talk about what options should be offered to those who suffer from an incurable disease or who are dying.

The similarities between the linguistic regime of Apartheid South Africa and that of Catalonia

Some advocate for euthanasia, disguising it as "death with dignity" and speaking of people suffering from certain illnesses as if they were a burden. In contrast to this position, some of us defend the need for palliative care, that is, providing a dignified life for the sick, one that does not make them wish to die. The Catholic Church also rejects "therapeutic obstinacy," stating the following: "To precipitate death or delay it through “aggressive medical treatments” deprives death of its due dignity. Medicine today can artificially delay death, often without real benefit to the patient."

At this point, some of you might be thinking: "Elentir has lost it and started talking about bioethical issues in a post about linguistic topics." Well, no. The reason I've started this post this way is because some people tend to talk about languages ​​as if they were human beings, even granting languages ​​rights over people—false rights that force us to renounce our linguistic freedom —that is, our right to use the official language of our choice, and not the one imposed on us—under the pretext that if we don't, a language might die.

Obviously, languages ​​are very important. They constitute a significant part of our cultural heritage, since much of the knowledge we possess has been transmitted through them. But the importance of languages ​​should not make us forget what they are for: to communicate. In terms of communication, and for a variety of reasons, some languages ​​are better for communication than others because they are spoken by many more people. We Spaniards are fortunate to possess one of the most widely spoken languages ​​in the world: Spanish. And curiously, in Spain we have politicians determined to put up linguistic barriers and subject us to impositions so that we speak other languages ​​because, they say, if we don't, they will disappear.

To begin with, that argument must be refuted. Languages ​​like Galician, Basque, and Catalan are far from disappearing. They currently have a considerable number of speakers, and it is highly unlikely that these linguistic communities will vanish overnight. What does threaten these languages ​​is linguistic obstinacy, to paraphrase the expression used by the Church to refer to procedures used to artificially prolong life without any benefit to the patient.

Our politicians often lament the loss of young Galician speakers, but they haven't stopped to consider that they have contributed to it, firstly by making the language increasingly artificial and distant from popular Galician (due to an absurd insistence on appeasing Portuguese influence and fostering a stupid differentialism that leads to changing traditional Galician words simply because they resemble Spanish ones). But above all, what damages languages ​​like Galician is being imposed upon them. This ends up making them odious to many young people, even those whose families speak the traditional Galician, not the laboratory-created version taught in schools.

On the other hand, one has to ask: how many more sacrifices will they demand of us under the pretext of preventing this or that language from dying out? Because in Spain we have reached extremes typical of a dictatorship when it comes to languages, and having reached these extremes, it is logical to ask: does preserving a language justify sacrificing our freedom? What keeps a language alive is that it is useful to its speakers. Languages ​​that are not useful disappear.

In his book "Language Death" (Cambridge University Press, 2000), British linguist David Crystal cites estimates by American linguist Michael E. Krauss indicating that 10,000 years ago there may have been between 5,000 and 20,000 distinct languages. Krauss estimated that, taking the average, the greatest number of languages ​​that ever existed was 12,000. Today there are about 6,000, of which only about 600 are safe from any real danger of extinction.

Throughout history, there have been languages ​​as important as Latin, Ancient Greek, Iberian, Hittite, Hunnic, Gaulish, and Gothic that have died out, in some cases giving way to derived languages, as happened with Latin. This language didn't even continue to exist as a living language despite being the official liturgical language of the Catholic Church for centuries and the official language of the Holy Roman Empire. Would anyone today sacrifice their fundamental rights to keep Latin alive?

Of course, I'm not suggesting we should eliminate any language. I regularly speak Spanish (my native language) and Galician, but I speak them because I want to. That's the important thing: freedom. If Spanish were in danger of becoming extinct, it wouldn't seem fair to me to keep it alive by resorting to dictatorial measures like those some use for the sake of Galician or Catalan. If you want to keep a language alive, let everyone speak whatever language they damn well please; that's what a free society is all about. And if no one wanted to speak a particular language, well, then it's time for it to die. When that moment arrives, all that will remain to be said is: rest in peace. What's terrible is that they kill our freedom under the pretext of keeping a language alive.

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Image: "The Tower of Babel", painting by Pieter Brueghel the Elder.