"Lost Languages Day" discussion, PLUS...

[Anthea Fallen-Bailey]

Dear friends and colleagues, 

I would like to add some small comments to the discussion on LLD, or some 
such name...

I agree with the correspondents who have recommended using a different 
word than "lost" in the title of the project, yet I am also sensitive to 
David Cheezem's comment on a "catchy" sound of the day's title...here 
are some other suggestions that we might consider: 

	Murdered Languages Day
	
	Language Survival Day (to be more positive about what we really
				want people to know about -- not just 
				the languages that are "dead", 
				but more urgently, to be more aware/
				sensitive about those languages that
				are still exist, but are "endangered", etc.) 
	
	Language Rememberance Day

	Slaughtered Languages Day 

	Sacrificed Languages Day (minority languages "sacrificed" to 
				nation-state/imperial power systems)

	Dispossessed Languages Day (??) 

	Breathless Languages Day (languages no longer spoken (breathed),
				because the speakers are dead, and 
				the knowledge is (mostly?) "lost")

	Vanished Languages Day 


For me, I think I prefer something like "Language Survival" or "Language 
Rememberance" Day...comments? 

David Cheezem's idea led me to think of another project:  

	again in connection with AIDS awareness, why not a 
	langauge quilt, with each patch representing a language
	that has "died" since...when?...1492 C.E.?

The patches (sections) could be made in the communities who have lost 
their ancestral languages, (perhaps the sections could be made of 
materials traditionally woven in those communities), and then sent 
to a central (national? regional?) location in each country 
where the sections could be sewn together and 
put on public display, travel to different locations, etc., 
as does the AIDS quilt here in the U.S.  Of course, 
all cautions which correspondents have noted in regard to LLD 
pertain here.  

In the context of the AIDS quilt in the U.S., I have noted that people go 
to see the quilt, even though they have never heard of any of the people 
remembered on each section, and will never get to know these people 
because they are already dead.  By the same token, languages could be 
given a memorial in a quilt, and I see no reason why people who have 
never heard of X language would be disinclined to visit such a 
quilt...the context is very, very similar to the AIDS context.  In each, 
people have died, and with them have gone special skills, knowledge, 
connections to the universe.  

Comments?

Respects and regards,
Anthea.