Climate change and languages: the threat of climate-induced migration to the world's vulnerable languages

Abstract

The concepts of "loss"and "damage"relate to the effects of anthropogenic climate changes that affect people's livelihoods. This short communication proposes that these concepts should be broadened to include cultural intangibles such as language. Migration caused by climate change is a known phenomenon, as are the potentially negative effects migration has on language vitality. We link these concepts together to argue that climate change can have a direct negative impact on the relative health of endangered languages. Focusing on Pacific islands and atolls, it is demonstrated that migration away from these homelands results in decline of use of the associated language. With the effects of climate change on these islands well documented, there is a distinct possibility that climate migration could cause language loss in the near future. We suggest that culturally protective public policies alongside climate policies are needed to support languages (and by extension, cultures) from "loss"and "damage".