Endangered Languages

A friend of mine posted an article on FB about a language from northern Greenland that was at risk of being endangered because of climate change and the fact that they were being forced to move further south, therefore exposing them to "modern" life. One of the responses to the article was by a guy who obviously knew nothing of the subject, but was very adamant about his opinion that it is better for them to stop speaking their language, to stop their cultural practices, and update themselves with the rest of the world. It made me quite upset because it is this kind of attitude that has caused so many problems with indigenous people everywhere, when approached by colonizers or simply those that want to take over their land. A linguist responded to him with reasons that neatly summed it up for a lay person to understand.

Here is a more indepth conversation on the topic by a linguist who spent more than 30 years in the Amazon, studying the Pirahã people. The culture and language of this group is so fascinating and different that puts into many questions what people have thought about science, language, thought, reality etc. This group has no numbers, no system of counting, no myths, no fiction, no stories from beyond immediate experience, has no terms for colours, and only very basic kinship terms. From the scientific perspective, according to Daniel Everett, they were keeping as pets the very same animals that scientists thought had been extinct for more than fifty years.

I am about halfway through his book "Don't Sleep, There Are Snakes", and I'm only 1/7th through the video, but this is an important topic and I wish to share the video with anyone who happens to read my blog. Hopefully, someone like the person who incorrectly assumed that it was best for all people to be like everyone else, can watch this and open his mind a bit.


http://fora.tv/2009/03/20/Daniel_Everett_Endangered_Languages_and_Lost_Knowledge