There’s a Welsh proverb that means, “A nation without a language is a nation without a heart.”
As the February-March issue of Civilization makes clear in a somber tale called “Vanishing Languages,” the irony is ample.
In Wales, less than 20 percent of the citizens speak Welsh in addition to English. “The Welsh language is clearly in trouble. Someday, it may even join the rapidly growing list of extinct languages, which includes Gothic and Hittite, Manx and Cornish, Powhatan and Piscataway,” writes David Crystal.
“If present trends continue, four of the world’s languages will die between the publication of this issue of Civilization and the next. Eighteen more will be gone by the end of 1997. A century from now, one-half of the world’s 6,000 or more languages may be extinct.”
If the 6,000 figure is head-turning, consider, for example, that in Papua New Guinea, there is a separate language for every 200 people. One is called Sene, but by 1978 fewer than 10 very senior citizens spoke it.
There are 200 North American Indian languages, but just 50 have more than 1,000 speakers. A decade ago, there were just 10 speakers of Achumawi out of a tribal population of about 800 in northeastern California.
Clearly, the fate of any language is a function of the fate of its culture. “Just as one language holds sway over others when its speakers gain power–politically, economically and technologically–it diminishes, and may even die, when they lose that prominence.”
Latin was once the world language. English, now king of the hill, was once itself endangered, “threatened by the Norman invaders of Britain in the 11th century, who brought with them a multitude of French worlds. In South America, Spanish and Portuguese, the languages of colonialists have replaced many of the indigenous Indian tongues.”
It’s said that the research into dying languages is not extensive, though a clearing house for endangered languages exists at the University of Tokyo, and the Summer Institute of Linguistics has a Web site on the topic. Still, there is evidence that with sufficient “personal effort, time and money, and a sympathetic political climate, it is possible to reverse the fortunes of an endangered language.”
Indeed, Catalan, which one finds mostly in the northeast of Spain, was given the status of an official Spanish regional language and apparently has more native speakers now than 30 years ago. Meanwhile, in Wisconsin, the Winnebago tribe is looking to develop a full-fledged Hocak-speaking school system, using casino revenue to help their children gain an understanding of a language long passed down orally from parents.
Quickly: March 3 Time bids farewell to the plucky Chinese dictator Deng Xiaoping but heralds (in three pages, no less) a thespian’s coming of age, namely the ascension of Johnny Depp from cult curiosity to mainstream star via his performance with Al Pacino in the mob movie “Donnie Brasco.” . . . Oops: March Metropolis has a cover story on observation decks of famous New York skyscrapers. It notes that “more than any other” building, the Empire State “says home to New Yorkers and New York to out-of-towners. Fay Wray, the World War 2 bomber crash, Zeppelin moorings: It was one helluva show. And the Grand Old Dame has lots of life left.” In light of the shooting of seven visitors by a crazed gunman last week, one could say that, albeit painfully. . . . March Town & Country announces what amounts to a new profession, namely “wealth consultants,” who are beginning to advise some of the “thousands upon thousands of mostly unobtrusive family businesses” which possess “the greater part of wealth in America.” This suggests contacting the Family Firm Institute at 617-738-1591 or looking for advisers in particular geographical areas via the institute’s Web site, which is www.ffi.org. . . . March Buzz, about the glitterati in Los Angeles, inspects the battling Hollywood trade papers, Variety and The Hollywood Reporter, and their big-ego stars, like celebrity reporter Army Archerd: “You want to know the difference between The Hollywood Reporter and Variety. Variety has me.” . . . “Is Your Family Wrecking Your Career? (And Vice Versa)” is the provocative cover tale of March 17 Fortune. It suggests that, all the nice family-friendly talk aside, corporate America “harbors a dirty secret. Families are no longer a big plus for a corporation: they are a big problem. An albatross.” This notes that several studies suggest that well-educated men with working wives are promoted less and paid less than men with wives who stay at home. Of course, there’s a vice versa, namely that, “Your career, in fact, may be doing even more damage to your family.” . . . In March Harper’s, writer Sallie Tisdale has a critical, depressing take on her perceived change in a grand institution, the public library, as it evolves into more of an “entertainment center” in which one can be confronted by puppet shows, juggling demonstrations, CD-ROM games, and people making cell phone calls. There are 9,000 public libraries in the United States and, ultimately, Tisdale broaches questions about what their purpose should be. . . . Finally, the tabloid Weekly World News has truly unsettling news for airline passengers: the tale of a Russian woman on a flight from Moscow to Istanbul who went to the bathroom and, due to a plumbing malfunction, was “nearly sucked through the toilet and out into the wild blue yonder!”
