The Value of Preserving Endangered Languages
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…Does it matter whether a seemingly obscure language spoken by a few people in one isolated corner of the world goes out of existence? Some people argue that language loss, like species loss, is simply a fact of life on an ever-evolving planet. But counter arguments are abundant. “A lot of people invoke social Darwinism to say ‘who cares’,” says Mark Turin, an anthropologist and linguist at Yale University. “But we spend huge amounts of money protecting species and biodiversity, so why should it be that the one thing that makes us singularly human shouldn’t be similarly nourished and protected?” What’s more, languages are conduits of human heritage. Writing is a relatively recent development in our history (written systems currently exist for only about one-third of the world’s languages), so language itself is often the only way to convey a community’s songs, stories and poems. The Iliad was an oral story before it was written, as was The Odyssey. How many other traditions are out there in the world that we’ll never know about because no-one recorded them before the language disappeared?
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Languages also convey unique cultures. Cherokee, for example, has no word for goodbye, only “I will see you again”… On the other hand, it has special expressions all its own. One word – oo-kah-huh-sdee –represents the mouth-watering, cheek-pinching delight experienced when seeing an adorable baby or a kitten. All of these things convey a culture, a way of interpreting human behaviour and emotion that’s not conveyed the same way as in the English language… Another argument mirrors that of biodiversity conservation. Just as ecosystems provide a wealth of services for humanity, languages, too, are ripe with possibility. They contain an accumulated body of knowledge, including about geography, zoology, mathematics, navigation, astronomy, pharmacology, botany, meteorology and more. In the case of Cherokee, that language was born of thousands of years spent inhabiting the southern Appalachia Mountains. Cherokee words exist for every last berry, stem, frond and toadstool in the region, and those names also convey what kind of properties that object might have – whether it’s edible, poisonous or has some medicinal value… We lose ancient knowledge if we lose languages.
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Finally, languages are ways of interpreting the world, and no two are the same. As such, they can provide insight into neurology, psychology and the linguistic capacities of our species. Different languages provide distinct pathways of thought and frameworks for thinking and solving problems. Returning to Cherokee, unlike English it is verb rather than noun-based, and those verbs can be conjugated in a multitude of ways based on who they are acting upon. And depending on the suffix, speakers can indicate whether a noun is toward or away from them… It’s a much more precise way of dealing with the world than English… For all of these reasons, linguists are scrambling to document and archive the diversity of quickly disappearing languages. Their efforts include making dictionaries, recording histories and traditions, and translating oral stories. “If there’s really good documentation, then there’s a chance that these languages could be revitalised in the future even after they cease to be spoken,” Turin says.
