One
of the notable efforts in bringing the world's attention to dying
languages is National Geographic's Vanishing Voices Project. What
linguists are trying to do in this project is to highlight what the
world would be missing if those languages are gone; for language is
not merely sounds that make sense to a certain community. Instead,
they could carry deep knowledge that can unlock scientific secrets.
Interesting questions similar to the ones raised in the Vanishing
Voices article comes to ones mind when thinking about the
consequences of losing languages at this rapid pace:
“Does
each language have boxed up within it some irreplaceable beneficial
knowledge? Are there aspects of cultures that won’t survive if they
are translated into a dominant language? What unexpected insights are
being lost to the world with the collapse of its linguistic variety?”
(Rymer,NationalGeographic Magazine, July 2012).
Take
the Jabbali language in the southern part of Oman for example. The
wide plant vocabulary it carries only reflect its speakers wide
knowledge of plants and their uses. If transferred wisely, this
knowledge could prove useful in many ways. Plants were once part
of the Jabbalis daily lifestyle; I'm not sure if this is still practised today but I do believe that the knowledge they've acquired
from this contact remains to an extent and could be used before it 'vanishes'. Similarly, the speakers of Kamzari (also spelled 'Kumzari')
in the northern part of Oman might have a lot to tell us about living by the sea.
This
month's issue of National Geographic Magazine discusses three
endangered languages; Tuvan, Aka, and Seri in Russia, India and
Mexio, respectively. Tuvan was apparently saved from extinction and
is no longer threatened. If this means anything, then it certainly means that
efforts to save languages can be fruitful. Yet if nothing is done
about 'vanishing voices' then I can't help but quote Harrison's last
words in the following clip, “The transmission of knowledge [will be] disrupted”.
