Thursday, October 1, 2009
#3 To save or not to save?
There are over 6,000 languages in the world, yet 96% of the world’s population speak only 4% of these languages. What about the rest of the 96% of the 6,000 languages found in the world? Why are so little people speaking these languages? The truth is that every two weeks, one language completely dies out. That means a language, along with its culture, can never be heard or seen again in this earth’s history. But should all languages be saved, or only ones that meet or have certain qualities or traits? This topic of saving languages brings many controversies. Although every culture, with its language, is considered valuable in this world, there must be a distinct line as to where which languages are worth saving. If the world tried to save every language humanly possible, invaluable amount of resources and time would be thrown away when they could be used in more important matters. If a language with only 17 speakers and no distinct culture worth countless years and millions of dollars? Although a harsh statement, all languages are not worth saving. The languages worth saving should have a considerable amount of speakers, a knowledge, literature, or culture that is unique and important, and a generally positive and receptive attitude from non-speakers in the world.
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I agree that resources must be divided wisely when saving a language. It seems more realistic to pick languages that are more capable of being saved than ones that are not.
ReplyDeleteThere is definitely a gray zone as to where a culture is worth preserving and you make a valid point in mentioning this. One has to wonder how significant a culture is that uses a language that only 17 people speak. It would seem that since not that many speak it, the language is clearly not that important to the survival of the culture.
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