How to save a language from extinction | Daniel Bögre Udell

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Languages and the pressure to abandon them due to political reasons. The impact of assimilation on indigenous cultures.

The Pressure to Abandon Mother Tongues

• Languages don't die naturally, people abandon them because they are forced to.

• Political pressure often plays a role in language abandonment.

• US Army general Richard Henry Pratt advocated for killing indigenous cultures as an alternative to killing indigenous people.

• From 1892 until 1978, the US government removed indigenous children from their families and forced them into boarding schools where they were punished for speaking their languages.

• Assimilation was seen as a complement to genocide.

Globalization and Alienation

• Only a few of the seven thousand languages alive today are recognized by their own governments or supported online.

• Globalization can be profoundly alienating for many cultures, as it often means giving up one's language for another.

• Without change, up to 3,000 languages could disappear within 80 years.

Reviving Ancestral Languages

• People around the world are reviving ancestral languages and rebuilding their cultures.

• Language reclamation began in the 1800s with Jewish communities looking to Hebrew as a means of cultural revival.

• Hebrew had been dormant for over 1,000 years but was well preserved in religious and philosophical books.

• Today, Hebrew is spoken by five million Jews and represents cultural sovereignty.

Cornish Language Revival

• Cornish activists fought for their culture in the 1900s and used old books and plays to teach the language to their children.

• Although initially scattered across Cornwall, Cornish speakers found each other online in the early 2000s and started using digital spaces for daily communication.

• Cornish is now taught in some schools, and there are signs, commercials, Wikipedia articles, and memes in the language.

• The revival of Cornish has led to recognition of Cornwall as a Celtic nation.

Tunica Language Revival

• The Tunica-Biloxi tribe of Louisiana is reviving their ancestral language.

• In the 1980s, Donna Pierite and her family photocopied old dictionaries to study and teach Tunica to their children.

• Today, there are nearly 100 speakers in language immersion classes, with new fluent speakers teaching it to their children.

• The use of media platforms like Facebook has helped inspire other Tunica people to get involved.

Language Activism Worldwide

• Language activism is happening on every continent.

• Communities working to preserve or reclaim languages share a common goal of using media for sharing and teaching their languages.

• With the growth of the internet, preserving and reclaiming ancestral languages is more possible than ever.

Personal Ancestral Languages

• The speaker's ancestral languages include Hebrew, Yiddish, Hungarian, and Scottish Gaelic.

# Reclaiming Your Language and Culture

This section emphasizes the importance of reclaiming one's language and culture in the age of globalization.

The Power of Language and Culture

• The speaker encourages individuals to investigate their own languages, even if they are not widely supported.

• Reclaiming one's language and embracing their culture is a powerful way to express oneself in the globalized world.

• The speaker shares a Hebrew phrase, "'nḥnw 'dyyn k'n," which means "we're still here," highlighting the resilience of cultures.

This section focuses on the significance of preserving language and culture as a means of self-expression and cultural identity.