Wrestling With Oblivion: Endangered Languages

» CBJ - Well said

This was a great article, Robert! Those numbers are startling. I remember when I was in school as a Russian major and first heard of the sheer diversity of languages spoken in the (former) Soviet Union; I had no idea! And that’s just a fraction of those spoken globally. I don’t think most people realize just how linguistically diverse the human race is.

“When a language dies, that information, which amounts to a complete human survival strategy, perishes, never to be regained.” You really put it very well. While I do to some extent agree with the “better-educated scoffers” that linguistic decay is part of evolution, I still have to come back to the conclusion that, while it may be natural, it isn’t acceptable. There are definitely unnatural mechanisms contributing to the current rate of decay. The idea of linguistically superior languages certainly exists, but it is untrue. All languages have strengths and weaknesses.

I think it’s wonderful that there are a handful of major languages that allow us all to (fairly) easily communicate, but we must all try to preserve these lesser-known languages in whatever way we can. Whether it is by studying one or by supporting the efforts of groups like Terralingua. We can all learn something from the language of others. What a boring world it would be if there was only English, or Chinese, or Spanish.

Thanks for the great collection of links as well!

-- posted by CBJ

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» rkhen - Re: Well said

Hi Chris!

Yes, the Soviet Union actually had some 300 languages; modern Russia still has a hundred-odd all by itself. Unfortunately, the Soviets have quite a history of ramming Russian down minority throats, and the new Russia is even worse. I wouldn't say they're more guilty than other majority cultures, but they're certainly as guilty.

One of the things that makes me laugh about this tired old human red herring of trying to figure out who's "better" than whom, is the Victorian conviction that people who have nonindustrial technologies are somehow "simpler," less "intelligent," or less capable of handling "complex concepts." The idea works out well for those of us who are products of industrialism, because it puts us at the top of alleged human evolution, but it's the most patently ridiculous tripe our ridiculous species has ever devised. For example, the Aboriginals of Australia have one of the least materialistic cultures on earth, but their languages are so much more complex than English, it makes us look like gibbering babies by comparison. Same goes for their kinship systems and cosmologies, neither of which any Western scientist has ever completely understood. When you figure that every five-year-old Aboriginal understands this stuff implicitly, it makes you wonder who is the "inferior" culture.

Thanks for stopping by Chris, and I hope to see you again.

-- posted by rkhen

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