"Last Words" by Elizabeth Kolbert (New Yorker, Vol 81, June 6 2005)
It is the differences between English and Eyak that are, in Krauss's view, the reason for preserving it. He asked me if I'd ever taken French. "Tout à l'heure il sera là," he said. "Tour à l'heure il était là. Well what the hell does 'tout à l'heure' mean? We have no English word for that. How would you define it-- 'now plus or minus a short while
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I find it quite sad that the spread of any language comes at the cost of other languages.
The issue with Eyak (now considered extinct, as the last full blooded individual and native speaker died this year), and other native languages of the Americas, is that English stepped in and refused to settle on anything but English. As what happened with other Native Americans-- It was actually illegal in Alaska for native Alaskans to use their own languages. So the last native speaker of Eyak that I mentioned, while she may have known the language, all of her children were forbidden to ever learn. A 3000 year old language, and all of the history, the meaning, the culture, the beauty that it held-- are extinct.
While it is the nature of languages to constantly be evolving-- to be born, to change, to die-- it is something sad for what it lost. You can never fully replace the meaning of what's dissapeared in the transition.
Shakespeare had it right to keep certain words as they originally were. If you look at Romeo and Juliet, and you simply translate "adieu" in your mind as goodbye, you'll never be able to fully grasp the weight of sadness in the play. Ad Deus, to God. A dieu vous commant, I commend you to god. Until God. A lasting or permanent farewell with the implication that you will not see that person again until you meet before God. You cannot read the story again without realizing that a simple English "Goodbye" will never be able to match it.
O think'st thou we shall ever meet again?
I doubt it not; and all these woes shall serve
For sweet discourses in our time to come.
O God, I have an ill-divining soul!
Methinks I see thee, now thou art below,
As one dead in the bottom of a tomb:
Either my eyesight fails, or thou look'st pale.
And trust me, love, in my eye so do you:
Dry sorrow drinks our blood. Adieu, adieu!
This also brings to mind certain Japanese words (specifically 'aware'), but I could really go on forever, and this comment is quite long enough. :x
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Don't apologize for you long comment. I rather enjoy and look forward to your posts.
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