Respond to the reading, reflecting on what is lost when languages die.
Siletz Dee-ni is on the verge of extinction with just 5 speakers left. They were told "...(their) language was moribund and heading off a cliff." It turned out to be from the Athabascan family of languages, related to Navajo. I believe each language is unique with all of its cultural attributes and distinctive sounds, therefore losing a language means losing a certain linguistic and traditional culture of the nation overall. With the modern communications and with the exceeding use of English, Spanish, Mandarine and a few other languages, a lot of much older languages are threatened. Another example is Matukar Panau, an Oceanic language of Papua New Guinea, with around 600 speakers remaining. With the death of these unique languages, some sounds that do not exist in the English language or other Roman languages, also die. This is not a big issue for many people, but realizing that losing small parts of the cultural heritage that world has given us, is very essential. I think by using digital resources and fundings to create dictionaries of dying languages will be one step toward maintaining the rich linguistic heritage of the world. Federally recognizing the tribes that are trying to survive is also a significant step for allowing once dominating languages and cultures not be wiped out because of English of Spanish.
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