Dying Languages

Ever since watching the documentary The Linguists, it has really opened my eyes to the world of dying languages and just how much we are losing by not recording or documenting these languages.

 It is estimated that 1 language dies every 14 days.  It is expected by 2050 that we will lose half the world’s 7,000 languages. Leaving behind about 3,500 surviving languages by the year 2050. The other 3,500 languages we would have lost, is not only just a language. We lose history and precious knowledge. History of the language and the culture behind it. In the article, The tragedy of dying languages, it expresses what it is like to lose a language, what we are really losing when a languages goes extinct.  

 “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.” – The Tragedy of Dying Languages

 Johnny Hill, Jr of the Chemehuevi tribe of Arizona is known as the world’s last speaker of Chemehuevi. He has tried to teach his children and others in his tribe, they want to learn the language. However, when it comes to the work, they are not interested in learning.

"I have to talk to myself. 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 Hill, Jr of the Chemehuevi tribe of Arizona 

When I think of Johnny, it makes me feel sad. To have no one in the world who speaks your native language. To know you are the last person who speaks that language, and once you die that is also the end of your language. It will be gone forever. I hope that somehow we are able to save these languages, record them, document them , because language is such a special thing and such a terrible thing to lose.