[lg policy] Linguist races to save a dying language spoken in Cambodia

Wed Apr 28 17:20:02 UTC 2010

  Linguist races to save a dying language spoken in Cambodia

With no more than 10 speakers remaining of S'aoch, a language spoken on
Cambodia's sea shore, French linguist Jean-Michel Filippi is in a race
against time to preserve a disappearing culture.
 ------------------------------
 ------------------------------

By Jared Ferrie <http://www.csmonitor.com/About/Contact-Us-Feedback>,
Correspondent
/ April 27, 2010
Samrong Loeu Village, Cambodia

In halting, creaky tones, the elderly chief of this tiny community spoke in
his indigenous language, S'aoch, an ancient tongue linguists predict will be
extinct within a generation.

   -
   <http://www.csmonitor.com/var/ezflow_site/storage/images/media/images/cambodia-map/7790193-1-eng-US/Cambodia-map_full_600.jpg>

 Rich Clabaugh/Staff
Enlarge<http://www.csmonitor.com/var/ezflow_site/storage/images/media/images/cambodia-map/7790193-1-eng-US/Cambodia-map_full_600.jpg>

   - <http://www.csmonitor.com/var/ezflow_site/storage/images/media/vanishing-languages-of-the-world-part-1/7789599-1-eng-US/Vanishing-languages-of-the-world-Part-1_full_600.jpg>
   Graphic
   Vanishing languages of the world - Part
1<http://www.csmonitor.com/var/ezflow_site/storage/images/media/vanishing-languages-of-the-world-part-1/7789599-1-eng-US/Vanishing-languages-of-the-world-Part-1_full_600.jpg>

   - <http://www.csmonitor.com/var/ezflow_site/storage/images/media/vanishing-languages-of-the-world-part-22/7789972-1-eng-US/Vanishing-languages-of-the-world-Part-2_full_600.jpg>
   Graphic
   Vanishing languages of the world - Part
2<http://www.csmonitor.com/var/ezflow_site/storage/images/media/vanishing-languages-of-the-world-part-22/7789972-1-eng-US/Vanishing-languages-of-the-world-Part-2_full_600.jpg>

Related Stories

   - Tribes strive to save native
tongues<http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/2008/0523/p02s01-usgn.html>
   - Tribal immersion schools rescue language and
culture<http://www.csmonitor.com/2002/0611/p11s01-legn.html>
   - 'The Linguists': Raiders of the Lost
Tongues<http://www.csmonitor.com/The-Culture/The-Home-Forum/2009/0227/p18s01-hfes.html>
   - <http://www.csmonitor.com/>
   - <http://www.csmonitor.com/>

Noi, who goes by a single name, is one of 10 still fluent in S'aoch, and
this village of 110 people is the last vestige of a disappearing culture.

S'aoch is one of about 3,000 languages
endangered<http://www.csmonitor.com/The-Culture/The-Home-Forum/2009/0227/p18s01-hfes.html>worldwide,
according to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and
Cultural Organization: One of them disappears about every two weeks. In
Cambodia<http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Asia-Pacific/2009/0330/p06s07-woap.html>alone,
19 languages face extinction this century.

**<http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Global-Issues/2010/0427/World-s-18-most-endangered-spoken-languages>

In this impoverished country where one-third of the population lives on less
than $1 a day, saving a dying language is a low priority. One of the
S'aoch's few allies is Jean-Michel Filippi, a French linguist who has
learned their language and transcribed about 4,000 of its words over the
past nine years.

"Once a language disappears, a vision of the world disappears," says Mr.
Filippi, explaining his commitment to preserving S'aoch.

His task is made harder by the fact that the S'aoch do not share his
fascination. They associate their language with poverty and exclusion from
Cambodian society, which is ethnically and linguistically Khmer.

"We don't use our language, because we S'aoch are *taowk*," said Tuen, the
chief's son, using the Khmer word meaning "without value."
Khmer Rouge dealt fatal blow

Perhaps the fatal blow to the S'aoch was the Khmer
Rouge<http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Asia-South-Central/2009/0406/p06s02-wosc.html>,
whose policies caused the deaths of up to 2 million people between 1975 and
1979. The communist regime uprooted Cambodians from their homes and forced
them into labor camps. The S'aoch were pushed from their land and prohibited
from using their native tongue. "They said we couldn't speak our language or
we would be killed," says Noi, drawing his finger across his neck, during an
interview in his wooden house perched on stilts about five feet above the
ground. The S'aoch who survived settled here, near the coast, where some of
them had been taken by the regime.

The loss of their land signaled the death of their culture because the
S'aoch were no longer self-sufficient and instead survived by selling their
labor, which plunged them into poverty. Since their animist beliefs were
intrinsically linked to the land, Filippi says the S'aoch also lost the core
of their cultural identity. Two nongovernmental organizations, International
Cooperation Cambodia and Care, are working to preserve minority culture by
incorporating four minority languages into 25 schools in rural, indigenous
communities. The Education Ministry cooperates with those programs, though
they do not include S'aoch.

Filippi says there are at least five indigenous groups in Cambodia with 500
members or fewer. With only minimal support for preserving their languages,
they are likely to follow the S'aoch into obscurity, their "unique view" of
the world forever cast into the void of undocumented history. "The fact is
[the S'aoch] lost everything," Filippi says. "And the language is going to
be lost in a few years as well. They might just remain a mystery forever."

*READ: The world's 18 most endangered
languages*<http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Global-Issues/2010/0427/World-s-18-most-endangered-spoken-languages>

*Further reading: *

   - Tribes strive to save native
tongues<http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/2008/0523/p02s01-usgn.html>
   - Tribal immersion schools rescue language and
culture<http://www.csmonitor.com/2002/0611/p11s01-legn.html>
   - 'The Linguists': Raiders of the Lost
Tongues<http://www.csmonitor.com/The-Culture/The-Home-Forum/2009/0227/p18s01-hfes.html>

http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Asia-Pacific/2010/0427/Linguist-races-to-save-a-dying-language-spoken-in-Cambodia
-- 
=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+

Harold F. Schiffman

Professor Emeritus of
Dravidian Linguistics and Culture
Dept. of South Asia Studies
University of Pennsylvania
Philadelphia, PA 19104-6305

Phone:  (215) 898-7475
Fax:  (215) 573-2138

Email:  haroldfs at gmail.com
http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/~haroldfs/

-------------------------------------------------
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/lgpolicy-list/attachments/20100428/736dc3bb/attachment.htm>
-------------- next part --------------
_______________________________________________
This message came to you by way of the lgpolicy-list mailing list
lgpolicy-list at groups.sas.upenn.edu
To manage your subscription unsubscribe, or arrange digest format: https://groups.sas.upenn.edu/mailman/listinfo/lgpolicy-list