Save the redwoods!
Save the languages! Say what??? The languages?
Of the 7,000 known languages in the world, one dies every two weeks, according to the National Geographic Society Enduring Voices project. The languages most at risk are those of indigenous people where "word of mouth" is truly the only form of communication. No text. No dictionary. No written record. If the voices are not alive to speak it, the language dies. So how is this tracked? There is no fancy footwork or cutting edge technology involved in this process - it is about as meat and potatoes as it gets - specialists go out into the field and visit with the people who speak the endangered languages. I love that.
http://www.nationalgeographic.com/mission/enduringvoices/about-the-project.html
A nifty interactive world map on the Society website highlights where the most endangered languages are located and the severity of their going extinct. http://www.nationalgeographic.com/mission/enduringvoices/
The death of a language's last speaker is not the only way a language becomes defunct. Another way is when it is absorbed into a more dominant one. This somewhat Darwinian pattern ironically occurs through the youngest members of a culture. The areas most prone to losing their indigenous languages are located along historic migration routes or have been colonized, says Gregory Anderson, director of the Living Tongues Institute. As the children consider a "colonial" language (languages such as Spanish, English and Russian) as more current or "better" than their native tongue, they move toward that language and away from their roots. It seems kids wanting to sit at the perceived 'cool kids table' of languages has a universal appeal no matter where you live and what you speak.
This brings to mind the many families who speak one language at home and another in school or at work. Children of immigrant families are uniquely placed in this arena as they attend schools where English is the instructional language but live in homes where their native tongue is only spoken. While this does not necessarily result in the death of a language, there is some sort of sublimation going on. Children are navigating two worlds and expected to satisfy both, all while addressing a myriad of social and emotional changes. It is humbling to consider the energy it takes to satisfy all those masters.
In 2006, Joey Vento, owner of the famed Geno's cheesesteak in Philadelphia, became a lightening rod in a hot language debate when he hung a sign on the window of his business. It read: "This is America. When ordering please speak English." Two years later the Philadelphia Human Relations Commission found the sign and the sentiment did not discriminate and therefore did not violate the city's fair practices ordinance. Vento's little sign opened up a raucous debate between those who ardently believe that English is the sole language of the US therefore everyone should speak it and those who feel our diversity is a national hallmark so using other languages alongside English is quintessentially American. Language wasn't dying in this instance but Vento's sign pried open the fear of some citizens that the English language was being buried under the weight of non-English languages and Philadelphia joined the controversy that boils in Florida and California.
I don't care about Vento's intention when he hung that famed sign four years ago; what I do care about is the conversation that surfaced about language and who, if anyone, owns the right to it. Are some English speaking citizens afraid of losing their American identity by demanding that only English be spoken? And can the same be asked regarding Spanish speaking citizens - are they afraid of losing their cultural identity by insisting Spanish be an option? Is there room for everyone in this conversation? My immigrant grandparents first arrived in Philadelphia from Sicily in the early 20th century. They conversed only in Italian and when my dad walked into his first grade class and spoke only in Italian, he was laughed at by his classmates. He complained to his parents, who, in turn, insisted he learn English in school even though they continued to speak Italian. My dad straddled that familiar line of speaking one language at home and another in the world outside home. He adapted. His parents, however, complied in a very limited way. There was room for both. Now imagine the pressure on indigenous speakers and what they face in the way of losing the one thing that unites them as a culture - language specific to their lives. In a NYTimes article titled Languages Die, But Not Their Last Words, John Wilford explained that the Living Tongues researchers focused on distinct oral languages, not dialects. "They interviewed and made recordings of the few remaining speakers of a language and collected basic word lists. The individual projects, some lasting three to four years, involved hundreds of hours of recording speech, developing grammars and preparing children’s readers in the obscure language. The research has concentrated on preserving entire language families." http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/19/science/19language.html?_r=1
The fact that this work is being done at all speaks loudly about the value of context and origin within any language. It also places value on the people who use it. It tells the world, this matters because this is how we communicate with one another. Who is to say one language is more important than another? Is it easily quantifiable? It pleases me greatly to read about the linguists' work in the Enduring Voices project because it tells me in a world where too much volume is often given to the loudest voices that are in no danger of extinction, attention is being focused on capturing the subtle voices which are teetering on the brink of becoming obsolete. Small steps in a diverse world.
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