Lost Tribes: November 2011

Tuesday, November 22, 2011

Hiatus

Despite the seriously long gap in my writing, I intend to continue. Content you will find here may differ somewhat from what I focused on before. There will still be an emphasis on linguistic research as often as possible, but to create some variety, and hopefully to maintain greater frequency in posting, I will be expanding the focus of this project to lesser-known languages (as opposed to "tribal" languages), remote cultures, factoids about these topics, relevant appearances in popular culture, and maybe even some original artwork. Enjoy!

Statement

This blog is dedicated to spreading knowledge about the world's least known languages and cultures. The inspiration behind the project is the awakening realization that comes from self-effacing reflection on the world and the sum total of its inhabitants. We are an impossibly massive population of human beings with highly complex modes of existence that vary both drastically and subtly, yet always meaningfully, in tide with cultural identity.

Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. once said "only in the darkness can you see the stars."

...only 6% of the world's languages enjoy a population of at least one million speakers. Furthermore, these 380 or so languages are spoken by 94% of the entire world population. The remaining 94% of the world's languages, on the other hand, are spoken by only 6% of the world's inhabitants.

What this odd statistic points to is the dwindling of human diversity through language endangerment. The inescapable consequence of this situation is the stifling of human knowledge. Language is especially integral to the vibrancy of culture because it mobilizes human expression. It formalizes the human imagination and all its capacity for science, art, music, literature, mythology and every other facet of our intellect. The faculty for language is arguably the defining basis of homo sapiens, generated by the unique experience of each cultural memory and used to offer expression to that experience.

As an interesting aside, the URL for my site ("wrinkle-footed car") comes from the Salish word for automobile - p'ip'uyshn - the literal meaning of which is, "it has wrinkled feet," referring to tire tracks.

Language death is a natural process, albeit one that has been expedited by colonization and globalization. Some predictions maintain that more than half of the world's 6,000 languages will be gone by the end of this century, which would have a devastating impact on linguistic diversity as we know it. As the example from Salish indicates, every language has an entirely unique way of representing our common world. Therefore, if we lose a language without ever fully understanding it, the native speakers lose an integral part of their cultural identity just as the rest of humanity surrenders a member of its broader community.
In light of the grave circumstances surrounding language preservation, I invite anyone and everyone to take part in a collective initiative to share your knowledge of the immense diversity found in our world's indigenous languages.

Lost Tribes

Tuesday, November 22, 2011

Hiatus

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