This debut post is a lecture given in 2003 by anthropologist Wade Davis, whose work focuses on indigenous cultures around the world. In his own terms, Davis describes the collective cultural network of the world as an "ethnosphere," which, as he goes on to say, is being eroded at an alarming rate. And he specifically notes that a great indicator of this decline is language death. For me, the sentiment conveyed here is directly parallel to my intentions for this blog. At the end of his lecture, Davis maintains that storytelling will be our best effort for the revival of endangered cultures. In this vein, I'd like to think of my blog entries as a storybook of human culture as it is captured by language.
Monday, February 1, 2010
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Just read this article about a language in India whose last speaker has just died.
ReplyDeletehttp://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/8498534.stm
This post is a great start to what I think will be a very important blog. The BBC article above, about the demise of Bo, was interesting as well.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the article AJ. I read the same story in Survival International and, coincidentally, my next entry will be about some interesting things going on with the noun class system of the Andamanese languages, which Bo spoke.
ReplyDeleteThis is awesome, Gabe! I applaud your mission.
ReplyDeleteI just stumbled on this web page - I have read George Murdocks works on cataloging ethnic groups, and enjoyed works such as The Myth of Continents that focuses on global and regional cultural groups. This site looks like an excellent further resource to follow these interests from a linguistic cultural POV.
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