Our Perception of Linguistic Diversity

When one utters the words “linguistic diversity” in the United States, immigration is often the first thought which comes to mind. However, long before the first colonizers arrived to the Americas, it was a land rich with many diverse and complex languages. Despite the centuries of colonization and the enormous attempts to erase Indigenous languages native to the continent, well over a hundred Indigenous languages are still spoken on U.S soil today. 

Regardless, many of us go through our daily lives without ever thinking about these languages. Many people are not aware that they even exist, or don’t have the basic knowledge to name them. Indigenous languages are an enormous part of or cultural linguistic landscape, but their current existence is practically erased from our knowledge, our memories, and our society.

Indigenous languages are not present purely on reservations, they have crossed over into other languages such as English & Spanish. Some examples of vocabulary originating from native tongues are, squirrel, pecan, moose, and caucus. U.S topography has also heavily borrowed from these languages including many state names (examples: Massachusetts, Oklahoma, and Michigan).

Currently in our nation, lexicon such as equity, diversity, culture, and inclusion, have become a standard in our day-to-day communications. Diversity, especially linguistic diversity, is a concept often related to “foreignness”, “immigration”, “minorities”, and “from abroad”. When one considers that approximately 300 languages were spoken on US soil before colonization arrived, and that after centuries of mass migration from every corner of the world, our nation is now anywhere between 80-90% monolingual, one should ask themselves; How did we amass into one linguistic form of communication? When did we forget the foundation, roots, and diversity of our land? Of our ancestors? When and how did English become the de facto language, despite the US never having declared an official language? When did we erase our linguistic diversity, and in consequence cultural diversity? How has linguistic diversity become imprinted in our minds as a byproduct of immigration? Do we truly understand the definitions of equity, diversity, culture, and inclusion?