by Janet Grischy

Created on: March 12, 2009   Last Updated: October 21, 2009

Every dying language embodies a culture. It carries the history, mythology, and poetry of the people who speak it. That is why we famously say that poetry is "what is lost in translation." When a language is lost, the particular culture of the people that spoke it is in danger of being subsumed into the larger culture.

The destruction of alien cultures is probably part of what the United States was trying to accomplish when it took

tribal children from their homes and put them in boarding schools where they were only allowed to speak English. Uprooted children who lost their birth language lost a connection with their society, and a grounding in the world of their birth.

A language does not only carry culture though. It also carries hard knowledge, precious lore that may be discarded along with a dying language. The study of particular ethnic groups has led to many advancements in medical science.

Modern practices derived from ancient methods are often slightingly called folkways. Yet many remedies, such as aspirin and quinine, had their start in mere folkways. Some of these ways will inevitably be lost along with the particular language that transmitted them. Therefore, we need to preserve ancient cultures for scientific as well as cultural reasons.

It's also possible to make a case for preserving the widest possible cultural diversity because diversity is a necessity for the survival of our species. Languages with few living speakers carry diversity, in their diction, syntax, and spirit. Cultural diversity seems to be decreasing in our increasingly homogeneous world.

In a world where everyone eats at McDonalds, who will know how to properly prepare tempeh, should the world need that knowledge? The exchanges and juxtapositions produced by diversity are what create progress, many believe. Great naturalist Charles Darwin, for example, learned by journeying.

In politics, the founders of the United States took their models from the Iroquois Confederacy and from ancient Greek ideals, as well as from certain of the contemporary European philosophers. What if these ideas had been lost, had died along with the languages that carried them? As proud as Americans are of our political system, we cannot say we originated it.

For all these reasons, scholars and politicians alike declare that all people have a right to their birth language, and the culture it communicates, and offer to defend it for them. The world needs to hear from all its peoples, speaking in the languages that carry their personal truths. When a language dies, a way of life, and a wealth of knowledge about the world, begins to die with it.

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