Living in a Multilingual World (The One About the Dying Languages)

I have just become acquainted with the music of Tanya Tagac, a Canadian singer with firm roots in Inuit culture. Her melodies – if they can be called that by western standards – are a blend of feral intensity and heavenly lyricism. But on the whole her songs lack words. They are made of sounds, very often of  a guttural nature. Yet, I can’t stop watching this performance of hers here and this clip from her latest album here.

Tanya reminded me of an article I read recently on the last known speakers of some of the world’s oldest languages. I am afraid to say that I did not recognise the names Wukchumni, Kusunda and Amurdag. It probably says more about me than about the languages themselves. Nevertheless, I did wonder what those last speakers must have felt like. Seeing their lexicon disappearing in a multilingual horizon, being swallowed up by the likes of English, Mandarin and… why not? Spanish.

There is a certain romanticism of mythical proportions in being the last bastion of a cultural phenomenon, like language in this case. Especially ancient ones in which words are much more than carriers of meaning. As explained in the article, some languages echo the voice of the plants, animals and objects around us, from trees to stars. That is philological magic.

Yet, linguists reckon that by the end of the 21^st century fifty percent of the world’s languages will either disappear or remain only on hard drives and online archives. We are talking vanishing here, not assimilation, not development, not evolution. A language, one day, will come across a cul-de-sac. And will die. End of the story.

It is not a surprise that many of these endangered “linguistic species” are to be found in places like Papua New Guinea and Nepal. Remote places where there is still a strong connection to the elements, to the natural world and to the spirit. Personally, I believe that by losing these languages we are also losing a vital link to a part of humankind whose cultural worth is on a different level completely. Neither higher nor lower, just different.

I know that there will be some who will say that this is all part of human evolution. Languages appear as a need to communicate with one another and with the passing of time, some become predominant and others are obliterated. My only response would be that a language covers more than a body of words and systems for them to be used. A language means more than a distinct manner of conveying ideas. Sometimes, a language is the only way through which  inanimate objects come to life or a singer, like Tanya, expresses her emotions.

© 2015

Next Post: “Saturday Evenings: Stay In, Sit Up and Switch On”, to be published on Saturday 23^rd May at 6pm (GMT)