Article:Death of a language
Caille Millner
Monday, February 11, 2008
Marie Smith died in Alaska last month, and with her went the Eyak
language.
For most of my readers - who probably speak nothing but English and a
little taco-store Spanish - at first glance this news will garner
nothing more than a sad shrug, a small feeling of loss, a wonder if NPR
will rebroadcast that short segment when Smith spoke a little of that
unusual Native American tongue, with its nasal intonations and its
explosive sounds. So I wanted to talk a little bit about what happens
when a language dies, since we're going to watch so many of them (90
percent of the world's 6,000 languages could be extinct by the next
century) die during our lifetimes.
(Note: I am not a linguist. My "expertise" in this subject is of the
thinnest, most honest kind - the realization that my own life will be
spent in submission to language.)
Take the Eyak word c'a, for instance. There is absolutely no English
equivalent for what might be roughly described as "silky,
water-saturated mud that gums between your toes," yet I feel enriched by
the knowledge that someone devised a word for an object that is familiar
and a sensation I have felt before, usually while walking on a beach.
Probing the word reveals even more - why did those who constructed (and
are still constructing) English choose not to create a word for this? It
can't just be because the Eyak lived along the Copper River delta on
Prince William Sound, where silt and swamp were their surroundings.
English, too, came into being in cold, dark, muddy climes. But while
it's clear that the Eyak were comfortable with having mud between their
toes, did the assemblers of English feel uncomfortable with it?
If that's true, then it tells us something about the Eyak that they felt
comfortable with that mud.
And it tells us something that the English did not.
Or take the Eyak word demexch, for instance. Demexch is a single thing
(a soft spot in the ice) with two meanings. The first meaning is that it
is dangerous, that it is a bad place to walk. The second is that it is a
good place to squat near, for fishing purposes.
This is the kind of word that reminds me how little ambivalence is built
into the English language. As a language, English is not particularly
comfortable with gradation or uncertainty, a point that was brought home
to me once years ago when a Spanish-speaking colleague of mine was
railing about why he had to call his girlfriend a "girlfriend."
"It's so juvenile!" he shouted. "Why isn't there an English word like
novio or novia, something that doesn't make us sound like we're in high
school?"
"But doesn't novio mean fiance?" I asked.
"It can also mean that you're in an adult relationship with someone, and
maybe it doesn't need all those definitions," he said. "English doesn't
have a lot of words that allow for ambiguity."
Perhaps this also tells us something about the people who speak English
as well.
Language tells us all of these things about ourselves, but it's
difficult to recognize the language itself is thrown into sharp relief -
by coming up against another language, created by different people with
different experiences, values, and beliefs about the world. Marie Smith
only realized the importance of Eyak once she was an old woman. Once her
last surviving sister died and Smith became the last living speaker of
the language, she looked around and was horrified to discover that if
Eyak died, so did the world's understanding of why the Eyak believed
that leaves and feathers were so intertwined that they should share the
same word (kultahl). She looked around and realized that no one would
have the words to tell their stories about the Creater-Raven and the
magical loon, or to explain why the Eyak believed in the linguistic
kinship of a hammer and a hat. She looked around and realized that once
the language was dead, no one would understand how the Eyak thought, how
they lived, or what was important to them.
Now multiply Smith's recognition by a factor of 5,400 languages.
Unfortunately there are plenty of people who still don't believe that
losing all of these languages is a problem. They believe that linguistic
homogeneity is not just inevitable but also a sign of evolutionary
power, a sign that English has triumphed because its speakers have. But
what's at stake is not just someone else's dying language, it's our own.
They say when you learn another language that you understand someone
else's culture. That's a fallacy. What you actually learn is your own.
The words we choose to invent - and even more crucially, those we choose
not to invent - are reflections of our values and our desires, our
beliefs and our shortcomings. That's why all English speakers should
mourn the loss of Eyak language. What we have just lost is another
reflection onto what our own language means.
Caille Millner is a Chronicle editorial writer. You can e-mail her at
cmillner@sfchronicle.com.
This article appeared on page D - 4 of the San Francisco Chronicle
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Caille Millner
Monday, February 11, 2008
Marie Smith died in Alaska last month, and with her went the Eyak
language.
For most of my readers - who probably speak nothing but English and a
little taco-store Spanish - at first glance this news will garner
nothing more than a sad shrug, a small feeling of loss, a wonder if NPR
will rebroadcast that short segment when Smith spoke a little of that
unusual Native American tongue, with its nasal intonations and its
explosive sounds. So I wanted to talk a little bit about what happens
when a language dies, since we're going to watch so many of them (90
percent of the world's 6,000 languages could be extinct by the next
century) die during our lifetimes.
(Note: I am not a linguist. My "expertise" in this subject is of the
thinnest, most honest kind - the realization that my own life will be
spent in submission to language.)
Take the Eyak word c'a, for instance. There is absolutely no English
equivalent for what might be roughly described as "silky,
water-saturated mud that gums between your toes," yet I feel enriched by
the knowledge that someone devised a word for an object that is familiar
and a sensation I have felt before, usually while walking on a beach.
Probing the word reveals even more - why did those who constructed (and
are still constructing) English choose not to create a word for this? It
can't just be because the Eyak lived along the Copper River delta on
Prince William Sound, where silt and swamp were their surroundings.
English, too, came into being in cold, dark, muddy climes. But while
it's clear that the Eyak were comfortable with having mud between their
toes, did the assemblers of English feel uncomfortable with it?
If that's true, then it tells us something about the Eyak that they felt
comfortable with that mud.
And it tells us something that the English did not.
Or take the Eyak word demexch, for instance. Demexch is a single thing
(a soft spot in the ice) with two meanings. The first meaning is that it
is dangerous, that it is a bad place to walk. The second is that it is a
good place to squat near, for fishing purposes.
This is the kind of word that reminds me how little ambivalence is built
into the English language. As a language, English is not particularly
comfortable with gradation or uncertainty, a point that was brought home
to me once years ago when a Spanish-speaking colleague of mine was
railing about why he had to call his girlfriend a "girlfriend."
"It's so juvenile!" he shouted. "Why isn't there an English word like
novio or novia, something that doesn't make us sound like we're in high
school?"
"But doesn't novio mean fiance?" I asked.
"It can also mean that you're in an adult relationship with someone, and
maybe it doesn't need all those definitions," he said. "English doesn't
have a lot of words that allow for ambiguity."
Perhaps this also tells us something about the people who speak English
as well.
Language tells us all of these things about ourselves, but it's
difficult to recognize the language itself is thrown into sharp relief -
by coming up against another language, created by different people with
different experiences, values, and beliefs about the world. Marie Smith
only realized the importance of Eyak once she was an old woman. Once her
last surviving sister died and Smith became the last living speaker of
the language, she looked around and was horrified to discover that if
Eyak died, so did the world's understanding of why the Eyak believed
that leaves and feathers were so intertwined that they should share the
same word (kultahl). She looked around and realized that no one would
have the words to tell their stories about the Creater-Raven and the
magical loon, or to explain why the Eyak believed in the linguistic
kinship of a hammer and a hat. She looked around and realized that once
the language was dead, no one would understand how the Eyak thought, how
they lived, or what was important to them.
Now multiply Smith's recognition by a factor of 5,400 languages.
Unfortunately there are plenty of people who still don't believe that
losing all of these languages is a problem. They believe that linguistic
homogeneity is not just inevitable but also a sign of evolutionary
power, a sign that English has triumphed because its speakers have. But
what's at stake is not just someone else's dying language, it's our own.
They say when you learn another language that you understand someone
else's culture. That's a fallacy. What you actually learn is your own.
The words we choose to invent - and even more crucially, those we choose
not to invent - are reflections of our values and our desires, our
beliefs and our shortcomings. That's why all English speakers should
mourn the loss of Eyak language. What we have just lost is another
reflection onto what our own language means.
Caille Millner is a Chronicle editorial writer. You can e-mail her at
cmillner@sfchronicle.com.
This article appeared on page D - 4 of the San Francisco Chronicle
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