“Esdunèna keh kudoge dahkwandēʼ tedètsʼet. Neni dahtsʼadi netʼē dahkwandē tsʼèn keniden. Dahtsʼadi etʼē dahkwandēʼ. Dahkwandēʼ niʼushdèn shį̀. Dahkwandēʼ tsʼèn keniden. Dahkwandēʼ tsʼèn keniden.”

Fewer than 10 people in the world can understand this.

This language, Tagish, is spoken by an aboriginal tribe of the Northwestern Pacific Plateau. Along with more than half of the world’s 7,000 languages, Tagish is in danger of dying.

Across the globe, countless tongues have been blotted out due to social, political, and economical forces. Put plainly, when a “big” language is introduced to an area through imperialism, globalization, etc., the children of the speakers of “small” languages learn the dominant language instead of the native tongue. The indigenous language is not passed on, so eventually the last fluent speaker dies.

Why does this matter?

Language is more than a conglomeration of words. Language is the shadow of a people. It defines cultures, telling us a little of what it means to be human. Embedded in a language is the mentality of a nation, showing how a society perceives the world around them.  In Gana, a click language of only 800 speakers, plants and animals are categorized as either kx’ooxo (“edible”), paaxo (“harmful”), or goöwahaxo (“useless”).  The more perspectives we have on the world the better we can hope to understand it.

Our understanding of the world is amassed over hundreds of years.  When a language is not preserved, that knowledge disappears. It is possible that the highly specialized knowledge of some indigenous peoples–their history, their medicine, their plants and animals–will die with the last fluent speaker, never to be recorded.

However, this occurs nearly every two weeks. Every 14 days a language dies.  Every 14 days the works of generations of people become nothing. Every 14 days an existence is erased.

This is the threat endangered languages face.  Fortunately, efforts are being made to preserve these languages.  Organizations such as the Living Tongues Institute for Endangered Languages work with linguists to document, maintain, and preserve languages facing extinction.  As outlined in their mission statement, Living Tongues works to revitalize these languages through “linguist-aided, community-driven, multi-media language documentation projects.” These linguists travel to remote locations and work with indigenous populations to study the community’s abandonment of their own native tongue. The literacy materials, dictionaries, audio files, and even storybooks created by these linguists are often the first documentation of the language.

Minority languages all over the world are in danger, and the remaining speakers are crying out for help. The Tagish passage found at the beginning of the article is the plea of a desperate chieftain. He fears the death of his language, the obliteration of his people. Luckily, through the efforts of organizations such as Living Tongues, Tagish has been documented and translated. These are the chieftain’s words.

“To all my children, we are losing our language. You are our future leaders; you must learn our language. It is the root and heart of our culture. I pass you our language. You must learn our language.”

Interested in learning more? BABEL stands for Building Awareness for the Benefit of Endangered Languages, and we are a student-run organization on campus that works with the Living Tongues Institute. Contact us at [email protected] for more information.