I feel really pity for those languages being endangered or extinct.
Since young, I have been deeply interested in languages and culture; and one day, I found out about this endangered language in China, Manchurian language. Manchurian language used to be the major language in entire China (Qing Dynasty), but now after having mixed with the dominant language Mandarin, used by the majority of Chinese population, Manchurian is in extreme danger. Only a few old man in a rural village (San Jia Zi Cun) are capable of speaking the language.
The problem was that, since all the documents and cultural heritages during Qing Dynasty are all in Manchurian, and if no one can speak Manchurian, then the documents will never be understood forever.
I personally think that each language has their own special properties and value; it might be the key of analyzing the ancient history or cultural heritages' truth. It might be a key to opening the secret of a certain type of race, history or territory.
As a Scottish dialect is gone, the diversity of language has been minimized to the languages of smaller numbers. If this continues, the entire population in the world might speak only 10~20 different types of languages within hundreds of upcoming years. That would be the huge loss of cultural spirit and independence, as well as the loss of a number of different and unique culture. One loss of language is just like one loss of a certain plant species within a habitat; animals loses one single chance to taste an independent type of unique species.
As the world has lost one Scottish dialect, we should all perceive that as a warning, and try to preserve the existing languages as much as we could; Scottish dialect would have been a language that created a unique system with its people and would have created a sense of tie and familiarity between the people within the system. One language, brings people altogether and make them experience a sense of welcome!
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Terry NAM
11/8/2012 03:26:39 am
Maybe because we study ESS and focus mainly on the environmental issues, I believe we overlook the human local tribe. Actually, we sometimes cover them a bit and give them one of the examples not to harm the environment.
However, while reading this article, another article that was about the extinction of animals reminded me that I once questioned "do human beings set benefits of animals as priority? Do you disregard them if they don't have any?" This time, I referred that KI to the human tribe. "If these human tribes had had direct values and benefits, would people have left the last native speaker of Scots dialect die? Would they have allowed the disappearance of the language?"
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