Learning Journal #7 – SDLAP

[Dominique Brown]

When the language of a people die, so does the cultural identity of a people. Their history disappears because they can no longer identify with their past traditions because they can no longer understand the significance of them. They will, in a sense, become extinct. However, as was seen in the assigned reading, a dying language can be revived even when there are only a handful of people speaking it. In this day and age, the way to do that is to be creative and to make use of available resources. The indigenous people of America, in this reading, made use of the internet by creating an online dictionary filled with the words of their native language, Siletz Dee-ni, to revitalize the use of the language amongst their younger generation. In doing this, they have made it possible for their history to continue within a land that is now dominated by English and Spanish, languages completely foreign and threatening to it. As long as there are people dedicated to prolonging the life of a language and doing it in effective ways, that language and the history of its indigenous people will be passed down from one generation to the next.