Overview
Judith Thurman’s “A Loss for Words” is a detailed lament for languages that die out every day since the Western civilization spread into Northern America. In contrast with renowned dead languages like Latin and Ancient Greek, the mother tongues of the indigenous population have never undergone a stage of being a prestigious lingua franca of educated or religious multitudes of people. Instead, they resemble whispers of long-forgotten chants, being spoken by a few elders and enthusiastic researchers. One such is Keyuk, who learned Selk’nam from his mother, a woman with the blood of Native Americans. The man has studied linguistics to deepen his knowledge about indigenous people and language and now organized a musical band to revive a ring of the old words and phrases. In the activity Daniel Kaufman presents the other approach: he assembled linguists, anthropologists, and other specialists in Endangered Language Alliance to fight the reduction of language diversity. Thus, the article concerns the matters of variety, destruction, and preservation of the endangered languages, shedding new light on the issues of cross-cultural communication and assimilation.
What were the most important things you learned from this experience?
Languages Multiplicity
The diversity and complexity of languages are among the essential topics to learn from the article. The region of the United States and Mexico is full of communities that still use their mother tongues. Moreover, New York is said to be a compartment city of multiple variations of the language. Speakers use particular words for their cultural denominations, plant species of a specific area, or soil types. Some languages have lengthy words or peculiar melodic pronunciations. However, the author of the essay mentions not only the Native Americans but, for example, peoples of New Guinea as speakers of numerous dialects. Different countries are shown to treat diversity differently; some have learned to appreciate it, while others discern it as a threat to state unity. For instance, Russia and China tend to suppress the local languages and use a unique standard for education and collaborative practices. Therefore, I have realized that the world is full of languages with highly diverse structures and histories of use.
Mistreatment of Indigenous Cultures and Language Politics
Oppression of the Native American population is not a new issue, although still leading. The narrations about the fate of American Indians have always horrified my soul with their recitations of inhumane actions and mercantile crimes. However, I did not know about the Selk’nam genocide and the state of its language speakers. Similarly, the peoples of herb-rich regions are being utilized without any honors for their knowledge till today. Processors—a group of people that has to bring the civilization while avoiding the previous generations’ brutal mistakes—employ the natives to hook out some information about hallucinogens. Apart from these distasteful deeds, a considerable amount of countries pursue the speakers of native languages after conquering their nations or limiting their use. Namely, local schools prevent children from talking in the languages of their ancestors but propagate the dominant language of the country. The indigenous languages became forgotten by youth and pass into nothingness. In brief, people are cruel to foreign cultures and languages, which is proven by various countries’ politics towards the dominance of a ruling elite’s national language.
Endangered Languages’ Treatment
In opposition to the language variation decrease, multiple activists create spaces to discuss the issue and probable solutions. Professional and amateur linguists, specialists in culture, and laity unite in the so-called “nest movements.” Their purpose is to aid natives in the spread of their languages or to revive the most isolated dialects. The other group of people interested in dying languages provide studies of the remained fragments of the someday existing linguistic community. They learn extinct languages to become their last speakers or to transmit the knowledge to other people. Some of them reached the elders who have a long time ago communicated in the dialect of the researcher’s inquiry. Furthermore, an attempt to revive a language was made and gained success because of academic support and grant programs. Accordingly, the article exemplifies various cases of scientific and non-scientific commitment to the dead or dying languages’ rebirth.
What impacted you most from this article/film?
The article has illustrated multiple examples of human curiosity as well as violence and destructiveness. The elaborate device of human communication—language—turned out to be a fractured system with exquisite components and varieties. One aspect of these entirely human activities marvels me the most: the extensive abilities of the intellect. Namely, men developed a complex system such as language and divided it into artificially different dialects. Then, humanity produced ingenious people who can learn completely alien for their speeches, provide academic studies, and organize dead languages’ revivals. Yet, the purpose and occurrence of multilingualism are not determined by some economic derived factors or particular needs. Thence, I am impacted by the human exploration possibilities and realizations discussed in the essay.
How did this change your views or perspective?
The well-written text is full of content that gives rise to contemplation. The notion of language being a result of culture and culture-determinant simultaneously is mind-changing. I finally understood why such a significant number of languages are spoken around the world. Different peoples discuss the matters most essential for them and derive their own means of communication for these. The existence of extensive vocabularies for various plants and soils is evident in such thought. Moreover, I realized that language use is linked to the politics of a country, being a device of unification or tolerance’s demonstration towards minorities. As a result, I changed my views on language, acknowledging that it is not a simple tool but a complex societal phenomenon.
Additional reflection
Finally, as I read Judith Thurman’s writing, various thoughts about languages and indigenous people have entered my mind. Namely, the change of language state from having numerous speakers to the one when only elders remember some phrases seems natural. The Native American peoples who used these varieties are scarcely spread among significant populations. They have acquired European culture—mostly—and the languages of their countries as well. The death of their dialects may be inevitable in this case, while the rapid acquisition of state languages can help them to enter the Western world with all of its fruition. Hence, the endangered languages are likely to exterminate soon, and this event may be more beneficial for indigenous societies than harmful.
Conclusion
In conclusion, the article has covered multiple topics: from the national identity of indigenous peoples to language varieties and their complexity. For me, the most important matters were various languages’ knottiness, the violent behavior of people towards foreigners, and extensive attempts to revive the dead languages. Moreover, I was deeply affected by the awareness of the level of human natural inquiry and inventiveness, as well as compassion about such abstract entities as languages. I realized that language is an exquisite system used by men for various purposes. Finally, language change and loss are inevitable, but the study of dialects may contribute to scientific research.