Journal #7- 105

[Abigail Sohkhlet]

When a language is lost, culture is lost with it. In the case of the Siletz people, their dance and songs were also rooted in their language. When their students were sent to schools where English was mandatory and any other language was discouraged, it was a direct shot at tribal culture as well. Culture and language are so intertwined that you cannot have one with the other. People communicate through language and one’s culture is reflected in how one communicates. For example, in Korean, the notion of hierarchy in the culture is so ingrained that there are specific ways to speak to elders and strangers as compared to friends. Therefore, the preservation of languages is necessary, however, this is a whole different obstacle. Creating online dictionaries and having one or two people alive maintaining a language is not enough. This is because the two people cannot count for all the language laws (grammar, etc), also, a page of words and their meanings is not enough because it does not discuss sentence formations or grammar laws. It would be tough to document and preserve all languages of the world especially if people of that language are dying out but nonetheless, that does not discount the importance of preserving languages.