I think the idea of an entire language dying out is incredibly sad. To think that an entire group of people, their rules, ideas, way of life, even something as simple as their jokes or poems, will be completely forgotten is troubling. With every language that becomes extinct, our world is losing an entire piece of its history.
It's possible that the culture found among these languages may not seem very interesting or too important to any one outside of the culture, but the idea of having it completely erased from the world is almost hard to cope with. I find it really strange to think that an entire culture can disappear with the death of one individual. Or more so, it's strange to think that one individual could be the only one to possess the knowledge and history of an entire language.
It's important for our world to acknowledge and embrace the cultures it carries. I think it's important for history to be remembered and for people and their ways of life to be remembered.
1 comment:
I think you mentioned something important in your post that everyone else has passed over- the fact that jokes and poems, which are the realization of the relationship between language and culture, will be lost with the loss of a language.
These items attempt to answer the question of "why is language so important to culture?" There are so many jokes from other countries that just don't make much sense when translated into a different language, along with common phrases and anecdotes. These are the things that are really embedded in a culture and can't be communicated in any other language.
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