NECROLINGUISTICS: Linguistic-Death-In-Life

In: Du bois review: social science research on race, Band 2, Heft 2, S. 159-186

Abstract

Necrolinguisticsrefers tolinguistic-death-in-life, a situation in which languages are incarcerated, leaving folk in linguistic limbo. It names the process by which people come to lack the ability to use at least one language well, and includes those who are tongue-locked because their languages are incarcerated in one or more ways. In illustrating how and why the linguistic experience of Black folk inspires the termnecrolinguistics, examples from slavery, colonialism, apartheid, imperialism, and neocolonialism are provided to document the reality oflinguistic-death-in-life. The main assumption of this study is that we can investigate the humanism of institutions belonging to any epoch, regime, or society through its linguistic posture and practice. It is noted that many sub-Saharan African languages are on death row, with many of its speakers stranded in semilingualism (or plummeting linguistic competence), peculiar kinds of monolingualism, or a kind of unilateral bilingualism,asymmetrical bilingualism. Each of these states is elaborated using examples: a native American, "White Thunder" (semilingualism); Jacques Derrida, a Franco-Maghrebian Jew (discordant monolingualism); and the august personality of Léopold Sédar Senghor (unilateral bilingualism). But the paper ends on a bright note, recognizing that, though the linguistic muzzle muffles Black culture and humanity, the resilience of Black folk is evident through their development of patois, pidgins, and creoles.