23 2. Overall framework of contact phenomena 2.2.2. Language loss in the colonial period Tsunoda (2005: 3) presents the mechanisms of language loss before European colonization on three selected instances that involve Latin, Nahuatl (a Latin American language) and Quechua (which was the language of the Incan Empire). Latin, according to the author, began to expand along with the expansion of the Roman Empire. It was a time when many colonized peoples abandoned their languages and adopted Latin. This situation led to the development of the Romance languages, e.g. Romanian, French, Portuguese or Spanish. The other group of languages, Nahuatl or Aztec, i.e. languages of the Aztec Empire, were dominated and annihilated by the neighboring languages.9 Damage and the devastating loss of languages came along with the wave of colonization. Starting from the 15th century, “[t]he languages of the European powers spread to other parts of the world and exterminated, or at least diminished, a number of aboriginal languages” (Tsunoda 2005: 4). Thus, in many places European languages are spoken as either the first or second language, such as English in Africa, Australia, New Zealand, North America; Spanish in Central and South America; Portuguese in Brazil; French in Canada; or Russian in Siberia. Tasaku Tsunoda (Tsunoda 2005: 9) states that language endangerment is a question of degree and of how prone a given language is to extinction. There seem to have been proposed many different classifications regarding the degree of endangerment. Tsunoda (2005: 9) listed five different language classifications which mainly employ the following criteria: a) number of speakers b) age of speakers c) transmission of the language to children and d) function of the language in the community/society. The crucial point seems to be criterion (c), for language survival depends on whether children acquire it or not. The first presented classification is that proposed by Krauss (1992, 1997, 1998, 2001, in Tsunoda 2005: 10). It is mainly connected with the transmission of language to subsequent generations. Krauss (2001) presents the following classification of endangered languages: safe languages, which will most likely still be spoken by (at least some) children in the year 2100; endangered languages, which will stop being learned by children during the 21st century; and moribund languages, these are no longer learned as a mother tongue by children or no longer spoken by children. 9 Lastra (1991: 97–99) and Dorian (1998: 4); quoted in Tsunoda (2005: 4).
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