Languages go extinct as they gradually become less and less commonly spoken and even less so documented. Languages like Chulym is also not a written language, which makes it even more difficult in conservation efforts. For Chulym, there are only about thirty-something fluent speakers of Chulym left. Efforts being made involve audio recordings, dictionary building, nuances. With linguists and other people who are interested in the language itself, there can be efforts made in conservation. In trying to preserve a language that is only spoken by a handful of people, I believe initiatives are very difficult, especially since it is hard to gain the trust of the community and breaking through to them. K. David Harrison mentioned in his interview that it has been easier for him to go into communities in Siberia regarding these efforts, but he faces more difficulty in North America in terms of going into communities to perform the same tasks.
As an outsider, linguists can serve as people who can better analyze the structures and cadences of language, but there will be many nuances that only native-speakers will ever be able to analyze. Even as someone who is a native-speaker of English, there will be many things I will never be able to explain, but having an outsider as another point of reference is extremely useful in language conservation efforts. I believe that a language can be conserved, but to be able to bring it back into use/life is an extremely difficult task. Even in modern times, I think it is difficult to reuse a language that may have died within a community. There may be language courses offered or speaking clubs, but be able to reintroduce a dying language back into use is a task that is still something that I think society struggles with. If the language still remains in elders, it may not necessarily be something that will be an easy task for other members of the community to utilize, if there is not someone already speaking it in the family.
For linguistics researching and performing this work, I think it is an extremely valuable and important task to conserve, but to figure out how to reintroduce the language back into use, will be something we all still have to figure out.
Comments