Endangered Njerep language

We all have heard of extinct and endangered species. But ever heard of extinct or endangered languages? Njerep is in the top 5 of the list of extinct languages. Endangered languages are those languages that have very few speakers. Njerep is one of the world’s least spoken languages.

And the number of speakers is decreasing day by day. For example, Njerep has very few speakers. Even that specific population that speaks it is not so fluent speakers of it. Only 6 people of the current generation at the Nigeria-Cameroon border knew a little Njerep language.

Language endangerment is a very serious problem. Beautiful languages are pieces of art. It takes thousands of years to build a wide variety of vocabulary, literature, language pronunciation, and language description with intense efforts.

Origin and History of Njerep

Who speaks Njerep? In the present age, people of the small village of Cameroon named somie village speak it. But Njerep is not a native language of somie village’s native population. Their spoken language must be something else. Njerep is the largest language of Mambila. Mambila has several different language dialects.

The mother tongue speaker of these dialects is the population of people of West Mambila village and East Mambila. According to the sources of linguistic analysis, the ethnic population of east Mambila was language native to njerep. But then the extinct population of native speakers of this critically endangered language immigrated from east Mambila village immigrated the Nigeria-Cameroon borderland.

Language affiliation

Njerep is very much similar to the other critically endangered and Africa’s least spoken language like Yeni, Kasabi, and critically endangered Twendi. Njerep is one of the dialects of these same kinds of the language pack.

Somehow all the languages of the same area are linked. So Njerep has an affiliation with ancient central African languages. Many African languages are extinct and endangered. Like Twendi is critically endangered. Many languages of the Mambila dialect are endangered. Because those African villages do not exist now. Many words of Njerep language are similar to the extinct language Kasabe. It also has an affiliation with other languages like Langa and Cambap.

How the process of colonization endangered Njerep

There are so many factors that cause the extinction of any language. Mainly colonization and immigration of people cause endangerment of languages.
Interaction of people of different cultures influenced both cultures badly. They adopt many things from one and other. Especially in colonization, people adopt things from the ruling class even if there are from different cultures.

The culture of other places influenced the language of native Njereps. When Njereps people moved out to other places.
This process of extinction of languages is very gradual. But impacts are long-term. Like now it only has 6 speakers. In records, grammar and vocabulary are not completely reserved.

UNESCO endangered languages

Like other things, i.e species, etc. humans are not willing to lose anything which belongs to the planet earth. Languages are another very important and aesthetic asset of human beings. Languages are not the only way of communication but they are a beautiful form of art. UNESCO has a department that identifies the critically endangered languages in the world.

They work on reviving the least spoken languages that are very much likely to extinct. Like the most spoken languages for example Chinese language, English language, Brazilian language, etc. world’s least spoken languages are also very important.
There are so many dead languages like Ongota is the world’s sixth least spoken language, Chamicuro is the world’s fourth-least spoken language, njerep is the world’s fifth least spoken language.

Like cultures, monuments, species languages are also very important to preserve. So to protect endangered languages and to preserve them UNESCO has a project named World’s Altas of language. They search endangered languages find their native speakers or the people who know the language and try to preserve them.

Record of Endangered languages

The total number of languages is 6500. At this point, UNESCO has collected data of more than 2 thousand languages. The ratio of endangered languages is alarming in today’s world. 40 percent of the total number of world’s languages and endangered. Many are critically endangered and many have a probability to get critically endangered in the upcoming year.

The question arises which language is considered to be endangered. The language which has speakers either native or non-native less than 10,000 is considered an endangered language. On the record, more than 200 languages have been extinct. And more than 2 thousand languages are endangered.

UNESCO

According to UNESCO Altas of languages in Danger, if a language as speakers less than a million people that language is going into the red zone. And it is just a matter of time that like njerep it will have only six speakers who are also not very fluent.

There are almost a thousand languages in the world which are critically endangered. The languages in this category have only speakers less than 10 thousand people. And then come those languages which have speakers less than 100. Can you believe some languages have only one speaker? There are 18 such languages. Strange right?

And you would not believe that 27 such languages have only two speakers. 100 plus languages are known by only 10 speakers. The languages which belong to the last categories are almost considered to be extinct. Because if that one or two persons die that language would die too.

Why Endangered and Extinct languages are important

Endangered languages are important as all languages are a tool for communication and they are the basic feature that makes us different and superior from other species. So if all languages get extinct we will be nothing more than animals and plants. Many other factors cause the endangerment of languages like many political, geographical, and ecological factors. Protecting and preserving endangered and extinct languages are very important.

Formation and importance of language

A language is a complex of specific utterances. No lingo is created overnight but is formed slowly over many years and is expanded over years. It is a slow evolutionary process and that is what makes it so special.

Further, it is then transmitted from one generation to the other and keeps growing over time. But if no steps are taken for its preservation and the number of its speakers decrease. Its existence falls into jeopardy and soon it starts to get extinct.

It is also not only about linguistic knowledge of that specific language. So, the loss of any language causes the loss of all the knowledge discovered in that language. It is an evolutionary process of centuries.

And the technology we have today would be impossible without the knowledge our ancestors discovered millions of years ago. It is the language that passes knowledge over to the generations. And so much discovered knowledge of ancients is yet to be discovered. But if the language in which that knowledge is got extinct, we would lose that.

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