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LAST February, amid the fjords of southern Chile, an elderly woman died 鈥� and a language fell silent. Cristina Calder脫n, a much-loved 93-year-old, was , which could at one time be heard across the Tierra del Fuego 鈥� the Land of Fire 鈥� that forms the jagged tip of South America. The loss of any tongue is a tragedy, but Yaghan鈥檚 extinction will be felt particularly keenly because this was no ordinary language. It was an 鈥渋solate鈥�: a language utterly distinct from those used anywhere else in the world.

Language isolates comprise about 200 of the estimated 7400 languages in use today and many are dangerously close to following Yaghan into oblivion. Estimates suggest that 30 per cent of all languages will have vanished by the end of the century. Isolates 鈥� some used by just a few hundred people 鈥� are particularly vulnerable.

But as their vulnerability has risen, so has an awareness that isolates can tell us a lot about human communication and cognition. In the past few years alone, they have offered us fresh insight into the interplay between cultural and linguistic evolution and provided support for a controversial hypothesis that links our understanding of reality with the language we use. 鈥淓ach of these isolates is a鈥� whole different window on the mind,鈥� says at the University of Hawai鈥檌 at M膩noa.

What鈥檚 more, there is new hope that the research might also identify better strategies to help us save them from extinction.

Broadly told, the story of language is a family affair. The similarities between Danish and Dutch, or Swahili and Zulu, speak to a world where groups of languages are far from isolated. Instead, they fall into roughly 140 common lineages.

Isolates are different. Instead of boasting gaggles of siblings, these languages stand totally apart. Probably the most evocative example is Basque, spoken by a community straddling the border of France and Spain. While vin is a favourite French tipple and Spaniards may enjoy a glass of vino with their dinner, the Basque equivalent is ardoa. And while farmers in Spain and France engage in agricultura or agriculture, their Basque counterparts prefer nekazaritza.

Having such unusual vocabulary compared with their surrounding languages can give isolates an air of the exotic, and foster a sense of pride and resilience among speakers. This may help explain why Basque has survived for millennia 鈥� a bronze tablet in the shape of a hand found in 2021 shows that an , while Basque itself may have a history stretching back 5000 years or more.

Rare languages

Truth be told, however, isolates are more conventional than they might appear. Many were once members of larger families, but have been left isolated because those other languages vanished 鈥� usually through a blend of cultural influences, conquest and simple luck. Ket, for instance, a language isolate of Siberia, was once part of the small Yeniseian language family. It is now alone, potentially in part because of the spread of the Russian language following Russia鈥檚 conquest of Siberia between the 16th and 18th centuries.

But, paradoxically, it is precisely because isolates are relatively conventional that they are so linguistically valuable. Each is a unique experiment that can cast new light on the solutions people have found for effective communication.

鈥淭here鈥檚 so much diversity in how humans construct a cognitive world with their languages,鈥� says at the University of Hawai鈥檌 at M膩noa, who is also programme manager at the Endangered Languages Project. 鈥淎nd isolates, just by virtue of not having sister languages, tend to hold fairly unique ways of encoding the world.鈥�

Decode them and we gain a richer understanding of the rules of language. Kutenai, for instance, is an isolate spoken by the Kutenai people, an Indigenous community straddling the US-Canada border. It is one of the few languages in the world with a grammatical 鈥渇ourth person鈥�, making it possible to fully clarify the meaning in phrases like 鈥渉e held his hat鈥�. Kusunda, spoken in Nepal, lies at the opposite extreme. It is , such as words like 鈥渘o鈥�.

Isolates are also challenging assumptions about the fundamentals of languages and language evolution 鈥� as revealed by Al-Sayyid Bedouin Sign Language (ABSL).

Used by a Bedouin community living in Israel鈥檚 Negev desert, ABSL arose in the first half of the 20th century, improving communication in a population where, through quirks of genetics and social organisation, the rate of deafness is 50 times the global average. But what really makes ABSL special is how its words are formulated. Practically all languages rely on what is known as duality of patterning, whereby users combine a relatively small number of meaningless sounds or gestures to make a rich and extensive vocabulary. For example, essentially all of the words in the English language are constructed from a few dozen fundamental sounds, each represented by one or more letters of the alphabet.

The alternative 鈥� a language in which every word is unique and can鈥檛 be broken into smaller, repeatable units 鈥� would be bewilderingly complex. In such a hypothetical spoken language, it might require people to remember that a certain timbre of hiss means breakfast, while mild squawking means bathroom. Yet that is precisely what ABSL does. Unlike all spoken languages, and indeed other sign languages, users must memorise a new and distinct gesture for every word they want to express. ABSL shows that duality of patterning isn鈥檛 the universal feature of language we assumed it to be, and it also offers us clues as to why.

In a 2021 study, at the University of Edinburgh and at Heriot-Watt University, both in the UK, compared ABSL to an unrelated but similarly young sign language 鈥� Israeli Sign Language 鈥� which does exhibit duality of patterning. They noted that Israeli Sign Language, like many formal sign languages, is usually learned by groups of students in schools. The two researchers reasoned that students interacting informally with one another 鈥� in the playground, for instance 鈥� would find and use linguistic features such as duality of patterning, because all students of a new language tend towards simplification. As other students adopt these simplifications, they take root and ultimately spread through the community.

Child talk

New ABSL learners, on the other hand, typically pick it up through exposure to the language of elders. The learners may still come up with innovative ways to simplify the language. But older signers are unlikely to adopt what they might perceive as child talk. The result is that simplifications don鈥檛 spread, and the language remains complex.

Kirby and Tamariz tested this idea with a simple computer simulation, containing a four-word 鈥渓anguage鈥� being used by a small, artificial population. If hypothetical students were taught by the oldest members of the population, who themselves were expert language users, it took more than 50 generations for duality of patterning to emerge. If, however, learners were taught by a younger member who was still picking up the language, .

The work suggests that can be shaped to a striking degree by the structure of a particular society. More specifically, Tamariz says the research identifies new learners as a powerful force in shaping languages.

One of the other big questions linguists are grappling with is the interplay between language and cognition. Some researchers argue that the way we communicate influences our perception of the world and our understanding of , an idea known as the . This controversial idea has its critics, but language isolates might provide crucial evidence in its favour.

The speakers of one isolate in particular often feature whenever linguists debate the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis. The Pirah茫 people, an Indigenous group living in northern Brazil, are famous among researchers for speaking a language 鈥� also called Pirah茫 鈥� that . What鈥檚 more, studies suggest that Pirah茫 speakers struggle to count, implying that words for numbers are indeed necessary to do maths.

But there is a problem with that conclusion, according to at the University of California, Berkeley. Pitt says that researchers have 鈥渋mplicitly or explicitly鈥� compared the Pirah茫 speakers鈥� understanding of numbers with the number knowledge of people in higher-income countries. He says this is hardly a fair comparison, given that the way of life in a country like the US is wildly different from that in the Amazon.

To really understand whether number words are necessary for counting, Pitt says we need to compare people who either do or don鈥檛 know such words, but who still share a common culture. Elsewhere in the Amazon, Pitt and his colleagues found an Indigenous community of such people.

The Chiman茅 people live in lowland Bolivia. Their language, Chiman茅, is another isolate and it does contain number words. Crucially, however, knowledge of those words varies across the society: some Chiman茅 can count indefinitely, while others stumble at 10 or 12.

Pitt and his colleagues worked with 30 Chiman茅 people, only 15 of whom were confident counters, and asked them to complete some counting tasks. For instance, volunteers were presented with a row of pebbles and asked to produce their own row containing the same number of pebbles. Most volunteers could do so reasonably accurately when told to make their row parallel to the row already on the table 鈥� perhaps, says Pitt, because they could simply match up the pebbles without having to count them.

However, when told to arrange their row of pebbles perpendicular to the row already on the table聽鈥� which does require counting聽鈥� Pitt and his colleagues saw a clear pattern. In their study, published last year, . Though everyone managed to demonstrate a聽grasp of numbers up to about 4聽鈥� which is thought to be an ability that is widespread among non-human animals too聽鈥� volunteers could thereafter only accurately reproduce perpendicular rows as far as their verbal knowledge of numbers carried them. To give a聽theoretical example, if someone knew the numbers up to 15, they could only make a row of pebbles that long.

However, when told to arrange their row of pebbles perpendicular to the row already on the table 鈥� which does require counting 鈥� Pitt and his colleagues saw a clear pattern. In their study, published last year, . Though everyone managed to demonstrate a grasp of numbers up to about 4 鈥� which is thought to be an ability that is widespread among non-human animals too 鈥� volunteers could thereafter only accurately reproduce perpendicular rows as far as their verbal knowledge of numbers carried them. To give a theoretical example, if someone knew the numbers up to 15, they could only make a row of pebbles that long.

In the past, some researchers have argued that people can use a range of different cognitive tools to count, downplaying the importance of language. The research by Pitt and his colleagues suggests this idea is wrong and language is crucial. Especially in the realm of numbers much larger than 4, Pitt says Chiman茅 shows that language sometimes offers people 鈥渘ew conceptual abilities鈥� 鈥� which may otherwise be unavailable to them.

But whatever gems they can offer linguists, isolates are, by definition, vulnerable (see 鈥淭ongues in trouble鈥�, below). Unlike other languages, whose insights may be preserved in related tongues, isolates have no family to fall back on. 鈥淲e really need to get information on the isolates,鈥� says Campbell, 鈥渂ecause if we lose them, that information is gone forever.鈥�

Learning Basque

Yet it is just possible that the very act of studying isolates might improve our ability to save them. at the Bego帽ako Andra Mari Teacher Training University College, Spain, knows from experience that isolates can survive against the odds. A child of Francisco Franco鈥檚 dictatorship 鈥� which, for decades, waged a war against Spain鈥檚 minority tongues 鈥� she had scant opportunity to learn Basque while growing up. But after embracing her ancestral tongue as an adult, Ortega-Etcheverry devoted years to exploring why it is so resilient to extinction.

In a 2014 study, she and her colleagues , uncovering what she calls a 鈥渃ontinuum鈥� of attitudes among participants. At one end were so-called euskaldunberri, or new Basque speakers, including those being taught the language at school. At the other end were euskaldun, or proficient Basque speakers.

Ortega-Etcheverry and her colleagues were surprised to find that euskaldunberri becoming fully-fledged euskaldun had less to do with technical proficiency and more to do with culture. To put it another way, being taught to speak Basque fluently is less important than having family and friends familiar enough with the language to use it in conversation. Some felt that the formal Basque they studied in school made them less euskaldun than learning a rugged local dialect.

Ortega-Etcheverry is already spreading the word from her research. She is now working with speakers of Nasa Yuwe, that, with about 60,000 speakers according to some estimates, is classified as vulnerable. 鈥淪chool is not enough,鈥� says Ortega-Etcheverry, arguing that if endangered languages are to thrive, activists need to create a welcoming cultural atmosphere.

Get the strategy right and Ortega-Etcheverry thinks we can turn the tide and help vulnerable language isolates survive. It might just ensure that when older community members like Cristina Calder脫n die, the languages they speak live on.

Andrea Valentino is a journalist based in New York