“The Linguists” starring David Harrison and Gregory Anderson, is about two scientists who are eager to document languages that are slowly becoming extinct. They are interested in areas where colonization has occurred, generations tend to stop using their native language, and to just learn from the diminishing languages before they vanish. It was surprising to hear how one small language is disappearing once every two weeks or so. This website shows all the different endangered languages of the indigineous people of Siberia.
Traveling to places like Bolivia, India, Siberia and Arizona, David and Gregory were determined to help preserve endangered languages. They worked in Siberia searching for a new language to document at the laboratory. They found that Chulym was the least documented language in Siberia. There was hardly any information about the language or how many speakers still existed. David and Gregory were out to look for Chulym speakers to learn the language, but were troubled to find that there weren’t many. Most of the few speakers they found were elderly people who were hard of hearing and had a hard time understanding. Later on their journey they found other speakers who taught them some basic things like body parts, colors and numbers. The Chulym language was also known as a “gutter language” that was looked down upon and forbidden if spoken in school. This language is very similar to the Pidgin language of Hawaii.
As we discussed in class, is David and Gregory’s research really accurate towards preserving an endangered language? It is to question if their research time was enough to record and learn the language to its full extent. They only learned easy phrases not really learning any deeper into more complex ones. Will this research be as useful linguistically as culturally?
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In the film, David and Gregory attempted to get a record of the various languages the were being threatened by extinction. With how rapid languages are becoming extincted, are these guys working fast enough to get a record of enough of the language to keep the language alive? Getting only basic information like body parts, family members, and basic words just doesn't seem like it is enough information to keep the younger generations speaking it fluently. Without more help, I think they will save a few languages, but a lot still will be lost with time.
ReplyDeleteI admire both of the researchers in the video. They get to travel to amazing places and meet people and help them preserve their culture and languages. This is a very respectable task and I'm glad people are out there in the world doing this kind of work. I think that preservation and study of these rare languages saves a piece of what makes each specific culture special
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ReplyDeleteI admired both researchers in their attempt to preserve and save the endangered languages. However, I think that their method of protecting and documenting the languages does not really help. The researchers only documented the basics of the language, such as colors, numbers, body parts, and so on. It takes years to do a very thorough research and to document the complex structures of the language. But from what it looked like in the documentary, it seemed that they stayed doing research that lasts only for a few days or weeks. With their attempts to save these endangered languages, I wonder if they are getting enough information to keep the language alive.
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