When Languages Disappear
“The extinction of languages
is an opportunity for economic growth and world
peace."
"The extinction of plant
and animal species strikes a serious blow to an
ecosystem, which must find a new balance. But a
language plays no role in the greater whole."
Marco Visscher, Ode Magazine,
November 2007, p. 31
If Marco Visscher spoke one of
the languages threatened with extinction, he most
likely would not have come to the conclusion that
it “plays no role in
the greater whole." Such a conclusion comes largely
from a psychology shaped by a language designed for
rational thought and material success in an industrialized
world.
The languages of the West may not really
be well suited for survival in spite of their economic
and practical advantages. After all, globalization
of the Western model of industrial growth, accompanied
by its language, threatens the survival of the planet
with pollution, over-consumption, cultural homogenization
and war. It is indeed possible that language and cultural
extinction will remove from human memory indigenous
perspectives that could prevent spoiling the earth
and killing our humanness.
When a beautiful colored songbird
becomes extinct in a little visited rain forest few
know or care, but the loss to the environment is
irreplaceable. Like an orchestra missing an instrument
section, the music of the forest becomes flatter.
The loss of animal species decreases biodiversity,
and is a loss for all senses — images,
sounds, colors, behaviors, and adaptive memories. Like
the caged bird in the coal mine, its death signals
a loss of elements that support life. A life is an
energy that is a part of the whole energy system of
our earth.
Contrary to what Visscher states, language does play
a role in the whole of human experience. Language,
like the life of any species, is an expression of vital
energy. As an energy of human expression it stimulates
and stores neural pathways and psychological dimensions
that are part of the collective human experience. One
individual cannot have all experiences, nor can one
have the full extent of human psychological expression.
Languages are the archives of human relationships within
a society, with an environment, and with the spiritual
universe. When viewed as part of a give and take adaptive
interaction with one's environment, language is like
the synthesis of art and science — at once recording
and at the same time creating. Languages thus mold
unique psychologies and unique cultures, all parts
of what is human. Lose a language and lose
a way of viewing the world — lose a dimension of human
perception, relationship and expression.
As a speaker of five languages
I know that each is a different energy, a different
music. I feel and think differently when I use a
different language. I have different associations
and different ways of relating to people and my environment.
If life were a party, languages would be the dances — the
waltz is very different than the cha-cha. Should
humanity only dance to one tune?
One of the languages
I speak is an African language growing out of an
animist, agrarian, iron-age society. Through this
language I can view the earth as it was viewed 3200
years ago. It has a simple way of expressing spiritual
relationships. In its name for "fruit," for
example, is comprised a whole ethic. "Fruit" to
them is "tree child." When one takes the
fruit, one must ask permission from the tree, its mother,
and afterward give thanks. How different is that from
modern culture where we buy bags of fruit, grown anywhere
on earth, in our supermarkets without even a thought
of all the human and natural forces that produced them?
Built into the vocabulary of the primitive African
language is the psychology of gratitude, which connects
the human to the natural world.
If modern people had some of the psychology of connection
to the living earth and to community inherent in many
threatened indigenous languages, how could we pollute
and destroy the earth? Would a change of language help
us have the mentality for living a sustainable life
with appreciation and harmony?
© 2007
Richard V. Sidy