105 Journal Entry #7

[Jimin Yoo]

The article talks about a language extinction that is an American Indian language, Siletz, with only about five speakers left. A person who has been working to create a Siletz Dictionary for seven years said, "We don't know where it's going to go." As there are not a lot of speakers of Siletz left, Siletz speakers are hopeless about the revival of their language. However, one researcher found this idea to be interesting and tried to work on a language preservation project. It is interesting that Siletz has been preserved in a form of song, but no one grew up with it as a first language. There is also a prediction where the language might sound like English as it has a geographical similarities. Unfortunately, school was once the enemy of tribal languages; however, now it is taught it as a foreign language at schools in Siletz. It is part of native speaker's job to not make that language to be gone, and we should try to keep the languages as they show us the memories of history and culture.