Hi Doc.,

Sorry this is late, but we’ve had a leaky basement and we have thunderstorms headed our way today…I haven’t really been doing much else other than work and then more work when I get home.

Languages, for what it’s worth, are place based tools for understanding the environment and other humans. Language is the fundamental building block for any culture, regardless of what meaning or expression that culture takes. Languages also change, and it is this change that made me curious about how pristine languages are and how easy it is to lose meaning and significance over time. Place that change within the context of a dying language or a language that is being revived and many questions begin to pop up. It is here that I wish to focus my research.

What I have been reading lately is the connection between the past of so many dying languages and the struggle to preserve or revive them for future generations. In light of how languages change I propose that current methods and techniques of preserving and reviving a language are “unprecocious” (i.e. less advanced and less capable of delivering on promises than at first glance) and that they do more harm than good. There are times when I think it is best to let a language die. Having said that there is still hope for many dying languages to be revived, but that hope is not and cannot and will never be found in technology. In order to completely revive a dying language a revival has to happen amongst souls, a spark has to set ablaze a group of committed people who will be willing and able to use the dying language on a daily basis.

One strategy currently being employed by researchers and conservationists is recording the sounds of dying languages, and this is often done by outsiders of the cultural context of the dying language. I believe this to be one of the worst approaches, because in many ways it’s no different than what Flaherty did with Nanook. A digitalized language is just a representation of what it really is/was, and that leaves it with (no pun intended) too much room for interpretation. Once a language has died, it is impossible to determine factual, fictional, and actual meanings and all of the subtler shades in between; only a willing human, with a brain, and who is capable of interacting with others, and who can interact with the environment, can fully revive a language from the brink of death.

The biggest example of a more holistic approach (i.e. one that places people front and center) that I believe can help revive dying languages is Hewbrew. Other groups whose languages are dying have actually visited Israel to understand how Hebrew came back from the brink of extinction. All political debates aside, it’s nothing short of a miracle. It’s amazing that it went from a liturgical language (e.g. only used in religious ceremonies, much like Latin and Aramaic) to a fully thriving and living language. So where does change fit into an event of this magnitude? It figures in because the language has changed; those who resurrected it brought with them words and idioms from abroad. But that’s not to say it’s a bad thing, or that it’s no longer the same language.  I suspect a language that cannot change or adapt quickly dies; a language that can change and adapt can live. It is perhaps a key to understanding how to revive a dying language.

-J.S. Velasquez