World\'s Small Languages Be Saved\"

¶ … world's small languages be saved" appeared in the August, 2000 issue of Harper's Magazine. In this beautiful piece of writing, Shorris talks about the extinction of small languages and partly holds globalization responsible for it. He also argues that inability to give higher education in indigenous languages is also the reason why weaker cultures are now at the brink of extinction.

Language is a very vital part of the whole cultural scheme. With the language being shunned by the people, it is only natural that culture would follow the death route too. "The weak must speak to the strong in the language of the strong.... The Darwinian way of the world bears some responsibility, globalization does the rest: movies, television, Reeboks, and the Internet." (p. 38) Shorris is basically concerned about the threat that small languages are facing.

Shorris argues that languages on the whole are losing words, even the stronger ones like English but what is really disturbing about this is that if such a thing can happen to a very strong language; imagine what would happen to smaller languages. "English, as it is generally spoken, appears to be losing more words than it gains. You only need to look at the thin thesaurus that comes with your word-processing programs to see how the English language is losing its internal diversity." Citing the linguist Michael Krauss, Shorris writes that about 3,000 small languages in the world contribute around 50% of the known words and they are all sadly facing possible extinction.

The writer goes to explain why any language, strong or weak, big or small, minor or major is important. "It is not merely a writer's conceit to think that the human world is made of words and to remember that no two words in all the world's languages are alike. Of all the arts and sciences made by man, none equals a language, for only a language in its living entirety can describe a unique and irreplaceable world." (p. 43) He describes an experience where he realized that indigenous languages are far more colorful and expressive than the well-known widely spoken ones. Shorris comes to see why the existence of small languages is important and realizes that the extinction of these languages would be a huge loss to articulation and expression.

I saw this once, in the forest of southern Mexico, when a butterfly settled beside me. The color of it was a blue unlike any I had ever seen, hue and intensity beyond naming, a test for the possibilities of metaphor. In the distance lay the ruined Maya city of Palenque, where the glyphs that speak of the reign of the great lord Pacal are carved in stone. The glyphs can be deciphered now. Perhaps. Only perhaps, for no one knows what words were spoken, what sounds were made when Pacal the Conqueror reigned. It may seem cryptic or even Socratic to say, but, in truth, only spoken words can be heard. There are nine different words in Maya for the color blue in the comprehensive Porrua Spanish-Maya Dictionary but just three Spanish translations, leaving six butterflies that can be seen only by the Maya, proving beyond doubt that when a language dies six butterflies disappear from the consciousness of the earth." (p. 43)

Nancy Bonvillian in her book Culture Language and Communication also talks about diversity and how it contributes to language growth in general. Shorris and Bonvillian appear to agree with the notion that small languages are extremely vital for the overall development of language because it appears that our languages are shrinking today. As we mentioned earlier that Shorris found English languages to be losing words, this is what Nancy Bonvillain appears to imply in her chapter on diversity in languages. But their survival is important, the prognoses are not very optimistic. One writer says, "...languages are being murdered today faster than ever before in human history. Even the most optimistic prognoses claim that only half of today's 6,000-7,000 spoken languages will exist by 2100. The media and educational systems are the most important direct agents in language murder today." (Skutnabb-Kangas, 2001)