Meya letter

[s.t. bischoff]

Some of you may have read this in the recent SSILA bulletin, so sorry for the
double exposure. It is a quite articulate and concise call for the preservation
of endangered languages and may be of interest to many.


* The bald eagle may be safe but languages are still in danger
  ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
[The following letter from one of the recipients of SSILA's Ken Hale Prize
for 2005 was published in the Financial Times (UK) on March 11.]


Sir, It was truly wonderful to read that America's national symbol, the
bald eagle, is back in such strength that the US Fish and Wildlife Service
is considering its removal from the endangered species list.  In a way,
the eagle's rescue symbolizes our own redemption.

Nevertheless, there is a crisis today even greater than that recently
averted danger by the bald eagle--that of our indigenous Native American
languages, which are on the leading edge of a global wave of linguistic
extinctions with 90 per cent of remaining languages expected to disappear
within less than 100 years.

In the same ways that a healthy planet requires biological diversity, a
healthy cultural world requires linguistic diversity.  Yet, language is
also an elaborate phenomenon tied to real people and cultures. Language
loss threatens a fundamental human right--that of expression of the life
and life ways of a people.

Each language relates ideas that can be expressed in that language and no
other.  Thus, when an indigenous community is no longer allowed to pray,
sing, or tell stories in its language, it is denied a fundamental human
right.  Unfortunately, linguistic rights have been seriously abused for
hundreds of years by banning specific languages and indirectly by
assaulting language-support structures such as land, economies and
religions.

Tragically, the denial of linguistic rights continues in the US in the
form of regulatory obstruction, fiscal neglect and racism.  Even today,
Native American schools are often forced to choose between basic funding
and Native American language preservation.  It is the modern continuation
of the colonialism and abuse that originally denied the land to this
country's original inhabitants.

Yet deliverance is not out of reach on this issue either.  Consider for a
moment that in the early 1960s, few Americans knew or cared that the bald
eagle was on the verge of extinction in the lower 48 states.  It took a few
non-profit organizations and a massive direct mail campaign to inform the
public about the plight.  Fortunately, the national response was immediate
and effective.

Within several years, new regulations like the Endangered Species Act were
in place and financial resources were directed towards solving the problem.
The eagles were on the road to recovery.  But our success was long in coming.
We cannot, however, be satisfied with this single victory.  Languages today
are the next frontier in setting the country into moral and environmental
symmetry. We cannot simply save the eagle while neglecting our other
important national symbols.

                                                         --Wilhelm K. Meya
                            Executive Director, Lakota Language Consortium
                                                  The Language Conservancy
                                                     Bloomington, IN 47408
                                                        (meya at lakhota.org)

__________________________
S.T. Bischoff
PhD Candidate
Department of Linguistics
1100 E. University Blvd
University of Arizona
Tucson, AZ 85721
USA

bischoff at email.arizona.edu