Disappearing peoples are a global problem, but it did not appear now. This is a natural historical process. Over the entire history, up to the 19th century, more than 500 peoples have disappeared, and over the remaining period to the present, more than a thousand, which indicates its acceleration. This is a natural process. It is associated with many factors of human development, and it is impossible to stop it.
What is a people?
It should be noted that the term “people” itself can include many ethnic groups that are united by historical, cultural ties, and lifestyle. Speaking of the British, they often unite the Welsh, Scots, Irish and other peoples living in this country. Residents of Germany call themselves Germans, but do not forget that they are Bavarians, Saxons and so on. The same can be said about the French, Italians, Russians and residents of any other country.
A nation can consist of many ethnic groups - groups of people who share common features. This is the territory of residence, language, a common historical past, religion and culture, which includes the customs of tradition, folklore. Therefore, speaking of the disappearing peoples, most likely, it is necessary to mean the disappearance of a certain ethnic group, its language, written language and culture. According to UNESCO, up to 25 languages disappear annually in the world, and up to 40% of the world's existing languages are threatened with extinction.
Why do peoples disappear?
There is nothing eternal in this world. This also applies to peoples. This question is well studied. The reasons due to which the disappearance of peoples are determined. A lot of them. Today, scientists talk about three important ones. It was they who accelerated the natural historical process. And over time, it will go faster. It is impossible to stop it.
Even the historian Lev Gumilyov emphasized that endangered peoples are a natural process. Like a person, a people is born, develops, reaches its heyday, after which a long time of peaceful life follows and obscuration sets in - a process of slow extinction. Scientists have even established the age of life of peoples. It ranges from 500 to 1000 years.
At all times, the main reason for the disappearance of entire nations was the war, the conquest of a stronger nation, when the untrained part of the population gradually assimilated, forgot their customs and language. Let us name the modern causes of the disappearance of peoples: the conquest of colonies, the emergence of cities, globalization worldwide. Consider these reasons, each individually.
Colonization
It is connected with it the acceleration of assimilation, the penetration of an alien culture, language, customs into the life of the conquered country. There is no need to talk about the interpenetration of cultures. The colonialists, being a more economically and culturally developed nation, as conquerors, created the dominant conditions for planting their own language and their cultural values. An increase in the number of endangered peoples of Asia, Africa, Australia and America was facilitated by the extermination of indigenous people.
Urbanization
The emergence of large cities has significantly reduced the rural population. But it was on rural life that all important traditions, culture, and language were based. Their center was rural societies. If we take Russia, then it was in it that the peasant communities played the most important role. These were a kind of self-governing organization, in the possession of which was the land of the village itself, settlements, and often arable land. The development of cities, where the rural population went for a better life, destroyed these ties, which contributed to the loss of a sense of community. This has led to a significant increase in the number of endangered peoples of the world.
Globalization
In the age of the Internet, there is a unification of culture, when all diversity, originality is cut off. The prevailing humanitarian expansion of the West, the imposition of patterns of "right" cultures. As a result of imitation, they move to other cultures, which leads to a loss of identity. This is called the "cultural diffusion effect." It is unification that completely erases the boundaries between the lifestyles of people of different nationalities, forcing them to completely renounce their roots.
Four ways to disappear
There are no nations that exist forever. We know nothing of many ancient peoples who have disappeared. How many were there, where they lived, what they were called. The ones we know about have their own destiny. Some were transformed (Greeks, Jews, Armenians). Others merged, forming completely different peoples (Turkmen, Uzbeks). Still others disintegrated, sometimes forming several dozens of nationalities (ancient Germans). Fourth are the disappeared peoples: Franks, Etruscans, Sumerians and thousands of others.
How many peoples in Russia are on the verge of extinction?
According to statistics, the few nations in Russia that are threatened with complete dissolution, that is, complete assimilation, are about 50. But in reality there are more. It is impossible to calculate the exact number, since there is no single agreement between the scientists studying this issue about what a people is, what an ethnic group is.
As a rule, people are considered extinct with the death of the last native speaker. As long as there are people who speak the native language, it is considered a disappearing people, that is, on the verge of extinction. In 1989, the northern people of the Kamasintsy ceased to exist, since the last native speaker of this language died.
In Russia there are peoples whose languages are on the verge of extinction. For the most part, they live in the North, the Far East, as well as in the Caucasus, in particular, Dagestan, where four people live, with a little more than 10 speakers of the language.
What peoples of Russia are threatened with extinction?
An interesting pattern, not always small nations are on the verge of extinction, and not always large nations manage to avoid this. For example, the Chukchi are only about 16 thousand people, but there have always been few of them, and it would not occur to one of the researchers to classify them among the endangered. Chukchi language is actively used, slowly, but there is a natural population growth.
Russia is sometimes called the country of endangered peoples, but this is not so. This problem today concerns any country. Now the question is being raised of the disappearance of peoples in the countries of Europe, where one or several peoples, the so-called mono-ethnic states, live.
The problem of extinction is also acute for representatives of a large ethnic group, for example, the Finno-Ugric. No, its representatives continue to live and there are not a small number of them, but over the past 100 years, the number of people speaking their native languages has decreased tenfold. According to the 2010 census, among the disappearing peoples of Russia are:
- Archintsy. They live in Dagestan, as an ethnic group is ranked among the Avars. There are 12 people.
- Botlikhtsy and galalaly. They live in Dagestan, are ranked as Avars. There are 16 people.
- Drive. They live in the Leningrad region. There are 83 people.
- Kaitagians. They live in Dagestan, assimilated by the Dargins. Only 5 people left.
- Kereki. They live on the shores of the Bering Sea. There are 8 people.
- Nganasans. They live in Taimyr. The number is 862 people.
- Tofalars. They live in the Irkutsk region. Their number is 762 people.
- Chulymts. Disappearing people living in the Tomsk region. In total there are 332 people.
Scientists believe that if an ethnic group totals from 300 people or less, then it can be classified as endangered, since the recovery process is no longer feasible. This list can be continued by peoples and tribes living in other countries of the world, these are Asian pygmies, guajas living in the Amazon, okieks from Tanzania, Papuans huli, Asaro, Yali from New Guinea, Tibetans, Argentinean gaucho, foreheads from China and many others.
What peoples lived in Europe?
If you think that the ancient peoples of Europe were Franks, Celts, Britons and others, then you are mistaken. In these territories there lived peoples unknown to us with their own culture, worshiping unknown gods. After the glacier descended, a large area of the mainland was overgrown with dense forests, as the climate was quite mild. The settlement of Europe took place from southern Africa and the southern parts of Europe.
The list of the disappeared peoples of Europe begins with the ancient Europeans, who were not tall, swarthy, dark-haired, with their heads outstretched and elongated faces. The exception was the Europeans of the Caucasus and the Balkans, who were quite tall. According to the assumption of historians, they had matriarchy, the level of development is quite low, they did not know wheels, iron, did not use horses.
The ancient Europeans were conquered by the arias that swept across Europe in horned helmets and chariots. Their historians belong to the Indo-European group. Ancient Europeans survived only in the mountains of the Caucasus, the Balkans and the Pyrenees. Scientists consider the descendants of ancient Europeans to be Basques, Iberians, Picts, Bosnians, Albanians and Georgians. In addition to them, there were Hittites, Etruscans, Minoans, Pelasgians, Ligurs - these are disappeared peoples of non-Indo-European origin.
What peoples of Europe may disappear in the next hundred years?
According to statistics, the number of European nations is growing steadily. Therefore, it seems that there are no disturbing questions in this regard, but in reality this is not so. The problem is that population growth is due to migrants, who according to statistics in 2014 amounted to 929 thousand people, and not due to the natural population growth, which amounted to 161 thousand people in the same year.
This leads to the assimilation of the European population by more aggressive migrants who do not want to speak European languages, do not follow the traditions of the countries in which they live their own lives, according to their customs, speak their own languages.
Another acute problem in Europe is a sharp decline in population in the mono-ethnic countries of Europe. They are classified as "demographic outsiders." Most of them belong to the East European post-Soviet bloc. These are Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Latvia, Lithuania, Croatia, Ukraine, Serbia.
The reason is the emigration of the population to the more developed countries of Europe. If this pace continues, then after 50 years in Lithuania and Latvia the number of inhabitants will be halved, in other countries by one third. With a small population, some of them can be classified as endangered.