Losing Languages--Sorta P-related

[Richard Romeo]

not sure if this has been posted, but it is interesting and relevant to P in 
many ways.  I wonder if the author is the same who wrote Under the Fifth 
Sun, a great novel about pancho Villa.  Rich

A glance at the August issue of "Harper's Magazine:"
Will the world's "small languages" survive?

Earl Shorris, a contributing editor, examines the question of
which languages are likely to survive. He cites linguist Michael
Krauss, director of the Alaska Native Language Center, who says
that in the next century as many as 3,000 languages will die.
Mr. Shorris notes that English, a language rich with stolen
words, will ultimately lose some of its vitality if less-used
languages die. "English, as it is generally spoken, seems to be
losing more words than it gains," he writes. "You need only look
at the thin thesaurus that came with your word-processing
program to see how the English language is losing its internal
diversity." Mr. Shorris goes into scenes of intense conversation
in other languages, visiting a conclave of Alaskan Yup'ik
speakers who talk about starting a course in their language and
lore. He also briefly visits the history of Eyak, another
Alaskan language. Only one speaker is left in all the world.
"Neither T.S. Eliot nor Claude Levi-Strauss knew how the world
would end, but the last speaker of Eyak knows: it will end in
silence," Mr. Shorris writes.  Although scholars were once
content to catalog words as they were lost, they have now
learned to mourn the passing of various tongues.
"Anthropologists and, until quite recently, most linguists have
been content to embalm the dead, preparing languages for the
file cabinet and the museum," Mr. Shorris writes. "This killing
of a language happens exactly as one would expect: the weak must
speak to the strong in the language of the strong. Eventually,
the language of the weak loses its utility, except for secrets
and the making of ill-fated rebellions." But every language has
its unique beauty and encompasses a unique, irreplaceable world,
Mr. Shorris writes. "There are nine different words in Maya for
the color blue in the comprehensive Porrua Spanish-Maya
Dictionary but just three Spanish translations, leaving six
butterflies that can be seen only by the Maya, proving beyond
doubt that when a language dies six butterflies disappear from
the consciousness of the earth."
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