After reading the New York Times article “Tribe Revives Language on Verge of Extinction,” I’ve become more aware of the importance of languages to one’s identity. As one of my classmates mentioned, language is part of your culture, and since you are exposed to a certain culture growing up you naturally develop an attachment to it. Thus, losing a part of your culture can be painful because it’s essentially like carving out a piece of your identity. That is probably why the five remaining Siletz Dee-ni speakers feel that they have a duty to preserve what’s left of their culture: their language.
I’m pleasantly surprised that outsiders of the Siletz Dee-ni language are helping with the Siletz Dee-ni dictionary project. Most people usually learn languages for practical reasons and for fun, so learning the language for the sake of keeping it alive is admirable to me. But, if we think of language as something we use solely to communicate out of necessity, the task can seem burdensome at the same time. There are only five speakers and the odds that learners will be able to study and use the language accurately and regularly is very slim. Once those five speakers aren’t around anymore, the learners won’t be able to progress in their study of the language anymore (unless they construct a comprehensive dictionary by then, but even so without native speakers it is quite possible that the language will become diluted overtime) and the interest in the language might decrease in future generations. I guess one way to keep it alive in the meantime is to create a community of Siletz Dee-ni speakers and meet regularly to speak in the language. I cannot predict whether or not future generations would continue the practice, but I guess preserving the language for the short term will help support the remaining Siletz Dee-ni speakers and that’s what’s really important.
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