Respond to the reading, reflecting on what is lost when languages die.
I found the article on Siletz fascinating! It is wonderful that a few dedicated people can revitalize a dying language with the power of technology. It is also astounding that the Siletz tribe went from being declared as a dead tribe to one that is federally recognized.
When languages die, so do the traditions and culture of the tribe/population that used to speak it. I can speak from a personal experience. My father's family hails from the Western state of Gujarat, in which there is a district called Kutch. The people of Kutch speak a dialect called Kutchi, which is similar to Gujarati, the official language of the state of Gujarat. I used to visit my grandmother in Kutch quite often as a kid, and with each visit, I'd pick up several words (most of them had to do with food). I loved playing cricket with the neighborhood kids and fit in well because I was able to understand the language.
My step-grandfather passing away resulted in my grandmother coming back to Kolkata and this also put an end to my trips to the West coast of India. Even though my father speaks the language fluently to this day, we never really got around to speaking it since English has been our family's primary language of communication. As a result, I have lost touch with the part of my life that involved Kutch, along with the traditions and few words that I knew in Kutchi. This is also a fairly common occurrence in big cities in India, since the youth tend to gravitate towards speaking English/Hindi and are letting go of less spoken regional dialects such as Kutchi.
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