Losing Your Tongue (fwd link)

[phil cash cash]

Losing Your Tongue:
World's Top Endangered Language Experts Gather

USA
ScienceDaily (Nov. 3, 2009) — Elder Tommy George has not spoken his  
aboriginal language of Kuku Thaypan for three years, since his brother  
died. "It might die in the throat, but it stays alive in the heart,"  
he said to the Queensland Courier-Mail in June, 2009.

What happens when you no longer have anyone to talk to in your own  
language?

"A language is not just words and grammar; it is a web of history that  
binds all the people who once spoke the language, all the things they  
did together, all the knowledge they imparted to their descendants,"  
says Anthony Aristar, professor of linguistics at Eastern Michigan  
University.

"When a language dies, it's just the same as when a species dies. You  
lose a part of the network of life, and you lose everything it could  
impart."

Access full article below:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/11/091102085834.htm