Saving the World's Endangered Languages

Living Tongues Institute for Endangered Languages

I went to the Portland City Club yesterday to see Greg Anderson from the Living Tongues Institute for Endangered Languages.  You can download the entire presentation here, or you can listen to it below:

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

The supplemental handout is here.  The audio is about an hour and two minutes, and Mr. Anderson starts speaking about ten minutes into the program.

This was definitely one of the top City Club programs that I’ve seen.  I came with modest expectations and had bought the $20 ticket mostly because I wanted to support events of interest similar to this one.  However, the presentation was absolutely fascinating.  The questions he covered were (from the handout):

What is language endangerment?
Where are most languages spoken and where are they most at risk?
How/why do languages become endangered?
Why wouldn’t it be better if everyone just spoke English or Chinese?
Why do some consider language endangerment to not be a problem and why is this wrong?
What can be done? Who is doing this?
How can I help?

There were parts of the presentation (in no particular order below) that I really enjoyed. First was when he spoke about prejudices and how speakers of a particular language sometimes view their own language as superior.  This is totally true. We seem to think that certain languages are more scientific than others, but the fact is that any thought that can be expressed in one language can also be expressed in any other. I think there’s a stylistic difference when crossing into another language–and that is to be expected when people use different words within a different cultural context–but under no circumstances do people of a certain language not have the words to say what they want to say.

Second was when he spoke about losing knowledge when a language disappears. I loved the story about the aboriginals who had two different words to distinguish wallabies based on their movement rather than their physical characteristics (I won’t talk about this, rather I’ll let you hear the presentation.)

Third was when he talked about nation states having a common language vs. having just one language. Yes, we need a common language, he says, but no, there doesn’t have to be only one language that people use. People can speak Farsi at home and still speak English when going to court or buying food at the supermarket. As Mr. Anderson points out, multilingualism is very common around the world.

From an Asian American perspective, I think language could help to foster belief and pride in one’s culture. Language, after all, is knowledge, and whether you’re speaking Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese, or Thai, there is knowledge within those tongues that Western cultures don’t yet have.  There’s a ton of knowledge that many of us have yet to discover.  Even if you speak your “mother tongue,” there’s a ton of knowledge that many of us have yet to articulate.

If you have time, check out this presentation. It’s totally worth an hour of your time.

Related posts:

1. Making the Old Cool Again