The LATimes has a story relating an extinction just as alarming -- perhaps more alarming -- than the possible extinction of Polar Bears by the shinking Polar Ice Cap:
One of the world's 7,000 distinct languages disappears every 14 days, an extinction rate exceeding that of birds, mammals or plants, researchers said Tuesday.
At least 20% of the world's languages are in imminent danger of becoming extinct as their last speakers die off, compared with about 18% of mammals, 8% of plants and 5% of birds.
Yes, the loss of animal species limits the Earth's ability to regenerate after a cataclysmic cosmic event, and narrows our bio-diverse ability to find new immunity and bio-mechanical defenses against diseases that may afflict us as we humans face the 'chancy' environmental conditions that are certain to come with Global Warming.
But, the loss of whole languages means the loss of eons of Human Generations's wisdom. And, that is pretty serious, for our own species, I'd say.
"When we lose a language, we lose centuries of thinking about time, seasons, sea creatures, reindeer, edible flowers, mathematics, landscapes, myths, music, the unknown and the everyday," says K. David Harrison, associate director of the Living Tongues Institute for Endangered Languages
Of course, I blame television for the demise of "Pocket Culture" languages at such an accelerated pace, in our age. [Interactive map.]
That, and America's most effective Foreign Policy weapons, syndicated SitComs, Levi's, satellite TV, and Coca Cola.
(Forget the Bush/Cheney weapon of choice, The American 'Smart Bomb.' Our wealth and popular culture is what will "win the War against Terror," if only we're willing to mature beyond a 7 year-old's jealous "Gimme mine NOW and screw you" mentality, and learn to 'share.' --eztempo)
The mechanism of our 'sharing' our Winning Way is in our Pop Culture products: our lifestyle and values portrayed on Televisions around the World (and the means to aspire to it), and our "Intellectual Property."
However, as we Americans homogenize our Globe to our values, expectations and language of "pursuit of happiness," let's acknowledge -- if not preserve -- something of what we're distroying in the process.
As the Institute points out, when a language dies, "a vast repository of human knowledge about the natural world, plants, animals, ecosystems, and cultural traditions" is lost to us.
Hey, as we support that fragment of our Indigenous Economy that still has some currency in the Global Village, these days -- our Entertainment Content -- let's take a moment (about every two weeks or so) to mourn the Generations of Wisdom we're killing off for all time.
Amen.