ELL: Wall Street Journal editorial

[Pierre Bancel]

Hello,

Well said, Gerd. As you state it yourself, however, we
already know the arguments of "the other side" - and
so do they with ours. Thus, it seems that my question
(about what could really make languages look like
invaluable treasures when seen precisely from this
other side - even languages spoken by a handful of
persons who might be socially destructured, alcoholic
and whatever you may imagine) will still remain
unanswered for the moment. This is by no means
unexpected, of course, and none of us should feel
guilty not to have this answer at hand. An answer
would have meant saving many threatened languages,
otherwise inescapably bound to disparition. Their
speakers welfare is important, naturally, and perhaps
the most important. In my opinion, however, this is
not the sole point at stake. For me, languages are
invaluable treasures because they are the most
complete archive of our remote past. However
interesting and maybe even crucial for the future of
humankind this might be, it is not worth a cent here
and now - when seen from the other side.

Of course, Joan, cultural tourism may be a mean to
save linguistic diversity, but this still does NOT
answer my question, because one might have perfectly
monolingual Maoris (or Frenchmen, or Lengadocians, or
Mondins, or whoever for that matter) singing
traditional songs, wearing bark or feather or fishfur
clothes, dancing around the sacred fire at midnight
under academic supervision of a guaranteed
anthropologist and who would after the show drive
their car to their flat downtown, watching TV while
eating McDo's without the slightest hint of huhu sauce
(erk). (By the way, this is what really happens where
cultural tourism develops.) One might even think that
cultural diversity without linguistic diversity would
be the best configuration to develop cultural tourism.

So long
Pierre


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