49

As the awareness that each culture brings unique riches to the world, the danger of some languages possibly becoming extinct has come to the fore and spurred many pleas and stimulated research to move in new directions. Yet the extinction of little spoken languages is not due to the spread of the main languages used for communication. The evolution of any language can be seen as the result of national government policy, but is dependent, first and foremost, on the choices of individuals, which express community bonds : local languages show the will of a group of individuals to place themselves in a relationship with their ancestors and with other groups bound by emotional and cultural ties, having no access to political power. An individual’s choice comes, secondly, as an answer to a desire to be in the public and/or international arena, and be part of sustainable development. Lastly, it reflects the desire to play with the infinitely varied combinations of meanings, sounds and shapes that make each language a treasure, the value of which cannot be appraised in mere economic terms. In other words, the concept of usefulness and that of pleasure are both in play, in a long-lasting struggle against the mighty linguistic hegemonies that cause them to wane. These concepts should also be taken into account by a policy on linguistic diversity which, all the while recognising that each language carries with it a variety of values, would not see the current developments as necessarily leading to the decline of other languages and would, likewise, not overly favour speaking only French or English. When taken neither as angels nor as devils, languages would come out all the stronger, viewed against their historical and political background.