Culture is a part of us, our identity, what we represent. Culture is our customs, our rhythm, our food and in a distinctly important way, our language. Every culture has its language, its means of expression. According to Rymer (2012), it is estimated that by 2100, approximately 90%, 7000 of the world's languages will cease to exist. While it has been debated that culture on its own is identity, molded into new forms of speaking and carried through other forms, language is the key to shaping identity and thought by unlocking the depth to each person's existence. Thus, Language should be preserved in its purest forms. The brutal murder of a language causes colonization, urbanization, and globalization, which in turn are responsible for the death of the culture.
Colonization is largely responsible for the speed at which languages are endangered. Linguists claim that the colonization of the world was initiated by Europe during the 15th Century; moreover, it has been taking place uniformly around the world. The European culture is believed to be the ultimate trigger of population movements within the indigenous populations creating new dynamics of language coexistence. The objective of European colonialism was to expand the economic and power base of European nations and to assert their superiority by imposing their customs, mainly their language. Immigrants such as the African slaves were socio-economically the weakest were the ones who were the first ones to get integrated into the colonial system especially because they did not have enough freedom to develop their own separate economic sub-communities. The free immigrants speaking minority languages found it advantageous to shift to the economically dominant language. This resulted in their heritage endangerment when their children found it pointless to learn or speak their language. The African slaves had to adapt as the local colonial vernacular was their only linguistic tool.
