Scientists and linguists have discovered a striking connection between the world’s biodiversity and its languages. Areas rich in biological diversity also tend to be rich in linguistic diversity (a high concentration of languages). While this co-occurrence is not yet fully understood, a strong geographic correlation suggests multiple factors (ecological, social, cultural) influence both forms of diversity, which are also declining at alarming rates. These high-diversity areas are also often at the front lines of the climate crisis. Where plant and animal species are disappearing, languages, dialects and unique expressions often follow a similar pattern of decline.
The Arctic may not be an obvious biodiversity hotspot, like the Brazilian Amazon or Tanzania’s coastal forests, but it plays a critical role in regulating and stabilizing the Earth’s climate and supporting life on our planet. Scientists often say that “what happens in the Arctic does not stay in the Arctic,” and any disruption to its habitat has far-reaching consequences for humanity.
Indigenous communities have deep relationships with the land they have occupied for generations, and this close relationship is reflected in the languages they speak — how they talk about the landscape, and how they express the beliefs and customs in which those languages developed. When their relationships with the land suffer, so can their languages.
For example, Vanuatu, a South Pacific island nation with the highest density of languages on the planet (110 languages across 4,707 square miles), is home to 138 threatened plant and animal species. It is also one of the countries that is particularly vulnerable to sea level rise and climate-related natural disasters. Scientists warn that the climate crisis has become the “final nail in the coffin” for many Indigenous languages, as coastal communities are forced to relocate.
When they can no longer depend on the land, communities may be forced to emigrate to other areas where their languages aren’t spoken, leaving behind not just their mother tongue, but all the wisdom contained in it. There is also evidence to suggest that in cases where a language begins to decline — due to economic or social factors, for example — people may gradually stop caring for the land. When languages are abandoned, the traditional ecological knowledge they carry is also left behind.
“Our language and traditional practices are closely tied to the land,” a community leader from Dishchii’bikoh, a tribally controlled school, in Cibecue, Arizona, told researchers in a 2016 study.“In many ways, it is used in describing objects, teaching moral lessons, and expressing our purpose on this land. Since the loss of our traditional language … our traditional ecological knowledge has become more and more threatened.”
Increasingly, Indigenous communities are pointing to the inextricable link between language and biodiversity as evidence that humans are not separate from nature, but very much a part of it.
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Linguistic diversity can be seen as an indicator of cultural diversity more broadly, Gorenflo says, which has traditionally been more difficult to define. “For a long time, anthropology was considered to be the social science that studied culture. But nobody could come to an agreement about what culture was,” he says. “Linguistic diversity is really what we’re using as a proxy for cultural diversity.”
The exact reasons behind the connections between languages and nature are not entirely clear, Gorenflo told me. Previous studies have suggested that areas with a high number of resources create linguistic diversity because people must adapt to more complex environments. But others have argued that it’s because more plentiful resources reduce the likelihood of having to share them and communicate with neighboring groups in times of need. Meanwhile, some research has suggested that the reasons behind this co-occurrence are far more complex and differ from one area to another. Gorenflo emphasized the need for more research. “Understanding this connection is important because it would change how we manage the relationship between Indigenous people and biological diversity — and nature.”
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For Gorenflo, the factors driving the co-occurrence of linguistic and biological diversity, which were initially puzzling, are now becoming even more evident. “I see languages as an extension of the cultural system, which itself is part of the broader ecology of the world,” he told me. “So, it’s less and less of a mystery to me, and more about exploring what this ecology looks like.”
The preservation of endangered languages is about more than saving words — it could be vital to safeguarding centuries of human knowledge and understanding the systems that sustain us.
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