A new documentary titled, The Linguists, is scheduled for release in January (here’s a link that will take you to the trailer). It looks like an interesting film. Here is the synopsis:
Scientists estimate that of 7,000 languages in the world, half will be gone by the end of this century. On average, one language disappears every two weeks. THE LINGUISTS follows David Harrison and Gregory Anderson, scientists racing to document languages on the verge of extinction. David and Greg’s ‘round-the-world journey takes them deep into the heart of the cultures, knowledge, and communities at stake. In Siberia, David and Greg seek to record the Chulym language, which hasn’t been heard by outsiders for more than thirty years. The linguists encounter remnants of the racist Soviet regime that may have silenced Chulym for good. In India, tribal children attend boarding schools, where they learn Hindi and English, a trade, and the pointlessness of their native tongues. Similar boarding schools for tribal children existed in the US through most of the twentieth century. David and Greg travel to the children’s villages, where economic unrest has stirred a violent Maoist insurgency. The linguists witness the fear and poverty that have driven youth from their native communities. In Bolivia, the Kallawaya language has survived for centuries with fewer than one hundred speakers. David and Greg trek high into the Andes to unlock its secret.
I do not think that we need to spend a lot of effort and money to preserve living communities of languages that are dying out–languages constantly change and in general I don’t think we need to impose artificial constraints upon them. However, I do support the kind of work that this documentary depicts. That is, recording and documenting languages that are in peril. I think that we should make great efforts to preserve this kind of data.
What do you think?
This is something that, as a linguist, I’ve pondered quite a bit. On the one hand, many in the field tend to obsess about language death as if its a person dying, a perspective that is, to say the least, a bit overboard. But on the other hand, two very important points must be made.
1) The loss of languages to a language of wider communication (LWC) is also a lose of valuable culture.
And more importantly 2), languages are so tied to a people groups identity that when one is rejected and viewed as inferior (i.e. not good enough to be taught in schools) the identity of the people in that group is damaged as well.
Charles,
I’m not sure why you respond to this movie by immediately talking about the cost to ‘we’, in terms of money and energy, to preserve dying language communities. Who is the ‘we’ you refer to? And why did you mention ‘preserve’ when this movie synopsis talks about ‘documenting’?
So you are in favor of making “great efforts” to preserve dying language data, but you feel that it’s a waste of time and energy to “preserve living communities of languages that are dying out.” Seems as though you think those living communities exist simply to enhance the trivial encyclopedic knowledge of academics. How many living speakers of a language does it take to make them and their culture and language worth the effort of outsiders to come alongside them and help them stand against the powerful outside forces that threaten send them into extinction?
I’d like to propose that small language communities are worth the time, energy and effort it takes to document their languages. Of course, I’m coming it at from the standpoint of one who not only documents languages but brings with that documentation a variety of services that truly benefits that community.
Although I strongly agree that all languages naturally change over time and outside forces can do little to stop that change, I’d like to propose that (1) the languages that are dying out are doing so primarily from insensitive powerful outside forces that introduce violent cultural change with little or no respect for the smaller weaker communities, (2) languages are not really dying out at the fast rate that is proposed in this movie synopsis and by organizations like UNESCO, (3) language communities that are dying out are worth the time, effort and energy to help them–notice the implications of “help”–strengthen their language use practices partly because they are in need of our compassion, (4) both the Hebrew and Christian scriptures speak of all nations coming to the mountain of the Lord, so this ought to inform our perspective.
I’ll be interested to see what kind of hidden agenda comes out in this film. It looks to me like it’s more about the Indiana Jones style adventure of these linguists rather than the true situation that dying language communities face. I can appreciate that the film may draw attention to the upheaval that powerful outside forces bring upon small communities, but will it do so in such a way that documents their true identity or only as to make a caricature of their differences for our entertainment and to further certain ideologies. I can only guess what some of the hidden agenda and blatant propaganda will prove to be in this documentary.
Mike, I agree that language and culture are wrapped up into the same package and people will no doubt be hurt when one language is preferred over another.
BZephyr, I agree and disagree with you at points. I share your impression that the movie has an Indiana Jonesish feel.
I am in favor of making efforts to document language for the academic reason that you mentioned. From the instances of the languages in peril that I am aware of in most cases the younger generations loose interest in keeping alive the language of their parents and grandparents. So, if those most connected to the language do not care to keep it going why should outsiders (except for an expanded data set for scholarly research)?
To play devil’s advocate to a couple of your four points: 1) languages primarily die because those within the community no longer desire to keep their language culture active–this isn’t outside colonialism, it is internal lethargy 4) you could be more clear what you mean by nations coming to the mountain of the Lord and how this relates to language preservation but one thing to keep in mind is that if it weren’t for the colonial imposition of Hellenism by Alexander and Co. then Christianity would not have spread nearly as fast as it did. Furthermore, the NT was written not in an obscure niche language but the English of its day.
Charles, I mostly agree with you regarding your response to my point (1). You said: “languages primarily die because those within the community no longer desire to keep their language culture active–this isn’t outside colonialism, it is internal lethargy,” which makes me realize that I really overstated my case in my original comment. In fact, in the area of Papua New Guinea where I do linguistics, translation and literacy, many communities have tried to overstate the reality of the decline in local language use because they have the impression that the organization I work for is in the business of rescuing dying languages. In reality, we can do little or nothing if the parents are not teaching the language to their children and if older people are not using the language themselves. But who wouldn’t be lazy about continuing to use their own langauge when the latest craze is to watch DVDs in English? And if the government has a strong negative policies towards minority languages, we cannot lay the blame only on the lethargy of the speakers.
Regarding nations coming to the mountain of the Lord, I’m thinking of passages like Isaiah 2:2, Psalm 102:15-22. How does this relate to language preservation? Preservation, perhaps not. But are small and dying languages worth the time, effort, and money it takes to bring them the word of God in their own language? Yes. Jesus sent his disciples to all nations (ETHNOS) in Matthew 28:19 and John presents us with a picture of every nation (ETHNOS), tribe, people, and language standing before the throne of God and praising him. I see linguistics and language development as necessary tools to bring God’s word to these language groups. Language preservation is often an added outcome of this process, although I don’t see the imperatives of scripture dictating efforts to preserve languages specifically.
Very true about Alexander the Great and the imposition of Hellenism speeding the spread of Christianity, but I don’t think that raises majority/trade languages to the level of being the only God-ordained method of spreading his word. In fact, the fact that Jesus and the apostles used the Greek Septuagint and that the New Testament scriptures themselves were written in Greek and not Hebrew is validation for communicating the word of God in a language that people can understand. Hebrew would have worked for Jews, but not for the nations. And Greek obviously didn’t work for all the nations either, but it was a good start for that time and place.
Thanks for the discussion.