Why Hello There, or Why Linguistics Inspires Me
Why hello there! You might be thinking to yourself, "what is the purpose of this page?" Or better yet, "what is the purpose of Linguistics?"
Well, I have some good news and some bad news. The good news is that I can answer your first question. The bad news is that the second question has a much more complicated answer than a single blog post can suffice. However, I hope that with time I will be able to show some of the skeptics that the study of languages is not only relevant to human communication, but in some ways it is necessary.
Now, returning to question one:
This page emerged for a number of reasons, some of which are rather selfish. Considering that I am an undergraduate major in the field, it should not come as a shock to learn that I love talking about Linguistics and language-related issues. I love explaining to my friends, linguists and non-linguists alike, all of the things that I learn. Bringing the subject to this medium is just another way of communicating my passion; and hopefully in the process, I can convert a few people into the world of language lovers.
Lately I have been having a minor crisis, because I have been taking in all of this information which I find to be interesting, and I have few people to share it with. It finally came to a peak several days ago while I was working on a research paper for my Historical Linguistics class. One of the research topics that our professor suggested was that we attempt using the comparative method to reconstruct the phonetic and lexical structure of a few (possibly) related languages. Let me break that down for all of the non-linguists:
In the comparative method, linguists systematically put together a number of languages, which are thought to have evolved from another Proto-language (for example, the way Spanish, French, and Italian are all thought to have evolved from Latin), and attempt to reconstruct the sounds, words, and sometimes the grammatical structure of this proto-language. This method is especially helpful when we are attempting to determine the relationship and similarities between two or more languages.
Anyway, I decided to reconstruct a subgroup, or a group within a larger "family" of similar languages, called the Central Delta languages (for a list of these languages, click here). This is a small group of languages, each spoken by anywhere from a few dozen to a few thousand people, in the Rivers State of Nigeria. In my typically obsessive manner, I became personally involved, as if the languages were my own languages and their speakers, my own people. I came to learn over the preceding weeks that there is very little research being done on Central Delta. One of the languages, O'chi'chi', was only discovered within the last decade or so, and it has not been documented beyond just a few words. This is primarily because the last remaining speakers, a few elderly people, had completely assimilated to Echie, a language and culture in their area with greater social status. Thus they refused to speak this language--their native language--any longer. Sadly, about four years ago, the O'chi'chi' was reclassified as an extinct language, meaning that all of its speakers have died, the language will never be used again, and the people's culture will likely disappear as well. Below is a truncated version of a more candid Facebook post that I wrote about my discovery:
It's fascinating, in a depressing way, to see how easily a language with little status can die. Those speakers were the last of their people to carry an important communication tool, and the rich cultural traditions that accompanied it. We will never know what secrets this language had to share: the history of their community, the stories that parents passed onto their children, the sense of identity and importance, the psychology of its speakers, and insights into science and nature as a whole...all of it is gone forever.
This has been a long, and rather tangential introduction to my page. However, I wanted to get across one of the most important reasons why I decided to make this page:
Languages carry important information, ranging from medicinal practices and the ecology of a region to the cultural traditions and sense of worth in an ethnic population. However, many people, especially those in areas such as the United States, often devalue languages or push indigenous populations to the point where they no longer feel like it is acceptable or safe to speak their native tongues. Since language is not only a form of communication, but a way of life, we must work to protect populations who are linguistically oppressed, both in our hometowns and around the world. For the speakers of O'chi'chi', it is already too late. However, for speakers of the thousands of other vulnerable and endangered languages, there is still a chance. However, there are still many languages which have yet to be uncovered and many endangered languages which have yet to be documented. If linguists make a conscious effort to find and record these languages, then we might preserve critical insight into the world. If everybody makes a conscious effort to learn about and appreciate other languages, then we might preserve a community.
(Note: the above photo was created by me at the height of the "what I do" meme's popularity)
