SDLC 105 Learning Journal #7

[Hongzhen Chen]

The reading talks about the American-Indian language Siletz Dee-ni that is on the edge of extinction with only 5 people speaking. While after persistent effort by tribe members and linguistic professionals, the language is now being protected and taught by local schools. This article reminded us the importance and urgency of protecting extinct languages because language is a carrier of culture, and the death of a language is actually the death of a culture. We have 56 races in China; each of them has their own unique language and culture,although some of them only have less than 10 people in the tribe. However no matter how few people are speaking the language, they are representatives of their history and culture. It is terrifying if a language died with no records or dictionaries left since this race would probably be forgotten by future people and wiped on the history forever. Therefore, although it is necessary for us to learn most spoken languages like English under the globalized society, it is also important for us to know the significance and trying to protect minor languages since they also represent the history of human development. There are more important or less important among languages and all of them are worth treating equally in research.