Preserve Orok Language

 

Hi,

For the previous post, one podcast has been created in order to talk about one of the world’s languages considered endangered. The chosen language for that was Orok, and today, the aim of the post will be to bring reasons why Orok language should be preserved as well as bring arguments, if possible, against some of the points that are generally made when talking about the English language.  

Orok language:

Intrinsic arguments:

·         Orok is a language rich in words describing the nature and the environment since the culture has developed around these areas.

Functional arguments:

·         The culture has developed around vegetation and taking care of reindeer therefore it could be very helpful in these areas since it could contain words and knowledge that are better at explaining specific aspects than the words in English. (Functional argument)

Other arguments:

·         It is a language that makes great efforts to survive.

·         There are schools teaching kids how to speak the language.

·         A written form of the language has been created recently in order to help its development and help it spread.

·         If Orok has been able to survive and start to revitalize without too much (if any) external support it means that it has potential of becoming a much more popular language.

Against points for English:

·         It is hard to define a language as being interesting compared to others since every language has its unique elements and aspects that can be considered special or interesting. Therefore, saying that English is interesting compared to Orok is quite irrelevant.

The Podcast

Hello and welcome back!

Today we will be going into an adventure in the world of language through the means of a podcast  created by me and my colleague Khaled about Orok, a language considered endangered.

Enjoy

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B7p_-PnuHcAJT2o1WlVVWmFzblU

Most Meaningful Takeaway

                “When I think of my tongue being no longer alive in the mouths of men, a chill goes over me that is deeper than my own death, since it is the gathered death of all my kind. It is black night descending once and forever on all that world of forests, lakes, snow peaks, great birds’ wings (…) - my breath catches, my heart jumps.” This is the passage that resonated with me the most from the text ‘The Only Speaker of His Tongue’ by David Malouf. I cannot imagine a world where my mother tongue would no longer exist; a world without the melodious sounds of the language that surrounded the most pleasant chapter of my life, my childhood; a world without the language that taught me how to describe and admire the nature and everything surrounding me. A language is at the end of the day one of a nation’s most powerful tools that unite people with its history and culture, offering them a unique view of the world as well as an identity in the earth’s great ocean of cultures. 

                In the mentioned passage, the author describes the death of his tongue as “deeper than [his] own death” trying to send the message that the death of a language is much more than the death of a single individual. It is the death of a culture, the death of a brave warrior that has fought for centuries, resisting other languages’ attempts of transforming his men into subalterns, passing the values and beliefs throughout countless generations. The words “black night” are used in order to describe the world without language, the element that lights our way in life and never fails us when it comes to express our feelings. “Once and forever”, the culture’s unique way of describing the world, the “forests, lakes, snow peaks, great birds’ wings” is dying once with its language.

Back to Babel

 Hi,

This post will be based on the article “Back to Babel”, by James Geary which has been published in the Times magazine in 1997, informing us about the “alarming rate” at which languages all around the world are becoming extinct.

 What can be observed immediately in this article is the choice of words and imagery used to open the eyes of the readers in what regards the situation of languages such as Tlingit, Nentsi language and Maori. Firstly, the author associates the extinction of languages with a modern tower of Babel, having a powerful effect on the audience. The reason would be that in the myth of the tower of Babel one massive change takes place in what regards the unique language spoken which has been “shattered” into many different ones. Although the modern situation is presented as the reverse process, a big variety of languages decreasing considerably in number, converging towards one universal language, the effect on the audience is that it brings the idea of a colossal experience that could affect all of us since changing one's language could chance his or her way of life.

The author compares language to living organisms, saying that “Any language is as divine and endless a mystery as a living organism” with the aim of highlighting the continuous change of language as the effect of historical and social facts and events. Moreover, some languages in the text are presented as predator languages such as English which is described as a “vacuum cleaner of language”, taking words from almost every other encountered language. By doing so, the author could make people think more about the effect that a disappeared language can have. The extinction of a language is similar to the extinction of a species which could affect the entire ecosystem, as mentioned as well in the article by the quote “pinning a dead butterfly on a board- you’ve interrupted the chain of life“. Since English language is using other languages in order to develop, their extinction could mean that at least one valuable source of words will vanish and one of the ‘roads’ to development would be blocked forever. Next, by using the structure “endless mystery”, the author is probably aiming not only to make people understand how vast and intriguing the domain of language is but also show how the extinction of one language, exactly as the extinction of a living organism such as a “panda or the Californian condor”, could mean limiting our ability of understanding the world around us. By using the word “divine” the author might be trying to increase the value of language in the eyes of the readers, presenting it as a marvellous element of each and every culture or maybe presenting language as a gift of divinity.