The tragedy of dying languages-gctid38753

[Ɔbenfo Ọbádélé]

               The tragedy of dying languages             

            The Kallawaya tribe of Bolivia are experts in the  use of medicinal plants

The death of the last speaker of an ancient language in India's  Andaman Islands highlights the fact that half of the world's 7,000  languages are in danger of disappearing. Linguist K David Harrison  argues that we still have much to learn from vanishing languages.
My  journey as a scientist exploring the world's vanishing languages has  taken me from the Siberian forests to the Bolivian Altiplano, from a  McDonald's in Michigan to a trailer park in Utah. In all these places  I've listened to last speakers - dignified elders - who hold in their  minds a significant portion of humanity's intellectual wealth.
            

Boa Sr, who died this week, was the last speaker of  the 70, 000-year-old Bo

Though it belongs solely to them and has inestimable value to their  people, they do not hoard it. In fact they are often eager to share it.  What can we learn from these languages before they go extinct? And why  should we lift a finger to help rescue them?
As the last speakers  converse, they spin individual strands in a vast web of knowledge, a  noosphere of possibilities. They tell how their ancestors calculated  accurately the passing of seasons without clocks or calendars. How  humans adapted to hostile environments, from the Arctic to Amazonia.
We  imagine eureka moments taking place in modern laboratories or classical  civilizations. But key insights of biology, pharmacology, genetics, and  navigation arose and persisted solely by word of mouth, in small,  unwritten tongues. Finally, this web of knowledge contains feats of  human ingenuity -epics, myths, rituals - that celebrate and interpret  our existence.
Pundits argue that linguistic differences are  little more than random drift, minor variations in meaning and  pronunciation that emerge over time (the British say 'lorry', Americans  'truck'; Tuesday is CHEWS-day, for Brits, TOOZ-day for Americans).
                                               

THE LINGUISTS                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                       The Linguists, a film featuring  the work of Professor K David Harrison and colleague Gregory Anderson as  they travel the world documenting the world's vanishing tongues, was a  hit at the Sundance Film Festival in 2008. Dr Harrison is a linguist at  Swarthmore College, Pennsylvania, and director of research for the  Living Tongues Institute for Endangered Languages.                                                                                        Photo: Kris Krug

These reveal nothing interestingly different about our souls or  minds, some claim. But that's like saying that the Pyramid of Cheops  differs from Notre Dame Cathedral only by stone-cutting techniques that  evolved randomly in different times and places; revealing nothing unique  in the ancient Egyptian or Medieval French imagination.
All  cultures encode their genius in verbal monuments, while considerably  fewer do so in stone edifices. We might as well proclaim human history  banal, and human genius of no value to our survival.
The fate of  languages is interlinked with that of species, as they undergo parallel  extinctions. Scientific knowledge is compaAmwle for both domains, with  an estimated 80% of plant and animal species unknown to science, and 80%  of languages yet to be documented.
But species and ecosystems  unknown to science are well-known to local people, whose languages  encode not only names for things, but also complex interrelations among  them.
Packaged in ways that resist direct translation, this  knowledge dissipates when people shift to speaking global tongues. What  the Kallawaya of Bolivia know about medicinal plants, how the Yupik of  Alaska name 99 distinct sea ice formations, how the Tofa of Siberia  classify reindeer. Entire domains of ancient knowledge, only scantily  documented, are rapidly eroding.
                                               

I have to talk to myself. There's nobody left to talk to, all the  elders have passed on        Johnny Hill, Jr, Chemehuevi tribe, Arizona

Linguistic survivors hold the fates of languages in their minds and  mouths.
Johnny Hill, Jr of the Chemehuevi tribe of Arizona is a  big, imposing man, but he instantly wins people over with his gentle  humility. Designated "last speaker" of Chemehuevi, Johnny achieved  celebrity in the 2008 documentary film The Linguists.
Although he  had never previously travelled far from his reservation or flown on an  aeroplane, Johnny mesmerized film festival-goers with his life story.  Raised by his grandmother who spoke only Chemehuevi, Johnny learned  English at school seeking a path out of isolation.
At the other  end of his lifespan, Johnny finds himself linguistically isolated once  again. "I have to talk to myself," he explains resignedly. "There's  nobody left to talk to, all the elders have passed on, so I talk to  myself... that's just how it is."
Johnny has tried to teach his  children and others in the tribe. "Trouble is," he sighs, "they say they  want to learn it, but when it comes time to do the work, nobody comes  around."
Speakers react differently to loss - from indifference  to despair - and adopt diverse strategies. Some blame governments or  globalization, others blame themselves. Around the world, a growing wave  of language activists works to revitalize their threatened tongues.  Positive attitudes are the single most powerful force keeping languages  alive, while negative ones can doom them.
            

An archive picture of a clan leader welcoming a  dignitary to one of the Torres Islands

Two dozen language hotspots have now been identified globally, and  new technologies are being mobilised to the cause.
A Torres  Straits' Islander in Australia told me: "Our language is standing still,  we need to make it relevant to today's society. We need to create new  words, because right now we can't say 'computer'."
The lowly text  message may lift obscure tongues to new levels of prestige, translated  software may help them cross the digital divide. Hip-hop performed in  threatened tongues, as I've heard among young Aka speakers in India,  infuses new vitality.
Language revitalisation will prove to be  one of the most consequential social trends of coming decades. This  push-back against globalization will profoundly influence human  intellectual life, deciding the fate of ancient knowledge.
What  hubris allows us, cocooned comfortably in our cyber-world, to think that  we have nothing to learn from people who a generation ago were  hunter-gatherers? What they know - which we've forgotten or never knew -  may some day save us.
We hear their voices, now muted, sharing  knowledge in 7,000 different ways of speaking. Let's listen while we  still can.
K David Harrison is the author of the forthcoming  book The Last Speakers: The Quest to Uncover the World's Most Endangered  Languages.

[liongod]

excellent article bro. kwame. I am currently reading brother baruti's "asafo" book, in it he talked about how we must relearn to become one nation of different cultures in order to gain national power. Although im sadenned by the loss of our tradition in any way especially our language, i was wondering do you think the loss of some language is inevitable in a situation such as our were so many have been stolen, brainwashed and spread out? Some have advocated for a central Kmtyw language (Kmtans) others want to say seperate by region; either way older languages may day and some will have to be merged.
 
In my opinion, the only way for all of Kmt to survive especially the impoverished areas is for us concious Kmtyws all over the globe to go over and fill the gap (something like castro's education reform period). In doing so we would have to learn atleast 2 languages just to communicate in certain areas (ie. portuguese and xhosa or french and swahilli, kwk) let alone areas that speak 3 or 4 languages. how can we preserve all languages and survive as a unified people?

[Ɔbenfo Ọbádélé]

liongod;38756 wrote: excellent article bro. kwame. I am currently reading brother baruti's "asafo" book, in it he talked about how we must relearn to become one nation of different cultures in order to gain national power. Although im sadenned by the loss of our tradition in any way especially our language, i was wondering do you think the loss of some language is inevitable in a situation such as our were so many have been stolen, brainwashed and spread out? Some have advocated for a central Kmtyw language (Kmtans) others want to say seperate by region; either way older languages may day and some will have to be merged.
 
In my opinion, the only way for all of Kmt to survive especially the impoverished areas is for us concious Kmtyws all over the globe to go over and fill the gap (something like castro's education reform period). In doing so we would have to learn atleast 2 languages just to communicate in certain areas (ie. portuguese and xhosa or french and swahilli, kwk) let alone areas that speak 3 or 4 languages. how can we preserve all languages and survive as a unified people?

Through our efforts along with our ideological orientation that will guide our efforts we can preserve what we will.