Just to put this into context: I’m much closer to extinction than I was 69 years ago. That’s life. Or in this case, death. So, musing as one does now and then about the transitoriness of this mortal coil, I wonder why the goody goodies of this world persist in lamenting the natural passing of everything they can shake a stick at!
If they could, they’d repopulate our crowded countryside with dinosaurs, woolly mammoths and giant stinging nettles. As if we didn’t have enough to worry about.
And now they even think they can save all of the 7,000 surviving languages – as if there is any lasting value in being able to say hi in Anishinaabemowin or Early Outer Mongolian.
Come on, guys. Spend your tax income on something else. Like educating aborigines. (Sorry, I couldn’t resist it.)
Boadicea's Chariot 
I want the re-introduction of triffids!
I can think of SO many uses for them, most of which you would find unacceptable.
You could stand them at the corner of bad council estates, position them at Heathrow immigration and our end of the chunnel, put one outside every benefit office.
Utterly splendid!
CO, now I’ve seen everything – you as a conservationist! 🙂
There is beauty to every language, the ways in which things are expressed are often not able to be duplicated. Language is also tied to culture. When a language dies, so does much of the culture.
I’ve received a great deal of training in cultural linguistics. (Don’t laugh, it allows me to save up enough money to go on holiday) I’m strongly in favour of preserving languages and cultures and am always said to see the world growing ever more dull, ever more homogenised.
Christopher, my serious point behind this whimsy is it seems to be PC to try to save things that have reached their natural nadir. In the case of languages, while it might be fun for remote island people to practise them but throwing hard-earned cash at them to do so seems misguided.
I’m with Christopher on this one.
I’m also with Christopher on this one.
Yep, I’d quite like a couple of triffids and the odd mammoth, but essentially, I’m with Christopher, Boadicea and Nym.
Well, ladies (and Christopher!), remember the ‘endangered’ beaver! Reintroduced to European rivers and lakes, it now causes flooding at huge cost to the communities affected. Similarly, for some reason inexplicable to rational beings, the conservationists want wolves back in their woods. Why did we kill them off in the first place? Because they’re dangerous!
I can see your point, Janus. I can’t say that I wake up each morning, mourning the demise of the Dodo or the fact that nobody speaks Cornish any more. But while individually these things do not mean a great deal, they are all part of the chain that brings diversity to the world. Think of a European city centre compared to an American one. In Europe you will see hundreds of little shops and restaurants each individually run by the owners. Each unique in its own way, but none of them essential to the character or fabric of the city. In America you will only see chain stores and restaurants. Vast monolithic, homogeneous gunk.
When I first went to live in Rhodesia as a child, every morning my brothers and I would wake up to a veranda swarming with moths and insects, attracted to the outside light that had been shining all night. The garden was full of an extremely wide variety of birds. Over the years, as my father and then my brother cuktivated the land and applied vast quantities of pesticides, the numbers of insects declined and with them the bird numbers. All one saw was crows and pigeons. (Well, not quite that bad, but heading that way.) One of the unintended consequences of Robert Mugabe’s land grab has been the fact that the ‘new farmers’ do nothing with the land. Indigenous vegetation returns to fields that were once cultivated and sprayed. With the trees and grasses come the insects and with them come the birds.
With languages, the whole world is having to speak American English. Do we really want that?
Sipu, no. Moderation in all things, as old Arry would say.
Watch out there’s an OZ about!
Sipu
No we don’t!
I think your comment #9 regarding the value of diversity is excellent.
Evolution is a bummer. It gets rid of things that are no longer fit for purpose. Personally, I cannot see the point of trying to revive old languages or extinct animals. As long as the knowledge of them is retained they do not need to exist any more.
If you are going to revive the mammoth, why not revive the smallpox virus as well?
FEEG
There is a huge difference between the extinction of animals and plants that cannot survive in a changing environment and the extinction of languages that define humans.
An item on our news tonight showed the ‘regeneration’ of a plant that became extinct some millions of years ago … Great! But, why bother? It probably fed an animal also long extinct…
Languages are, however, another matter. They are the prime identification of any group of people. Imagine being told that you can no longer speak English but must speak and think French, Greek, or Croatian. It is one of the cornerstones of identity. Why do you think that we English forbade the speaking of Welsh and Gaelic?
But what if that group of people changes? Why are we in England not still speaking Anglo-Saxon or Norse or even Latin? Do not forget that a lot of Scots and Welsh are now of basically Scandinavian extraction. Also, have you noticed that in any TV out-take program, whenever a Welsh presenter is rabbiting on in Welsh and trips over a tree stump or whatever, they immediately start swearing in Anglo Saxon? Sorry, but we will have to disagree on that one.
My original point was that it is hard to justify pushing water uphill to save dying langauges. Yes, we’re lucky we speak English. If we were the last 1,000 speakers in the world I’m sure I’d understand the need to learn another language because mine would soon die.
There is, as Boadicea said, a difference between preserving language and re-introducing uncivilised wolves into forests. (Our civilised OZ is an exception) I’m not really that obsessed about the preservation of languages, actually. There are some linguists who are militant about it and refuse to even try to understand why some languages decline and go extinct, for example, indigenous Brazilian tribes moving out of the rain forest and learning Portuguese/assimilating into Brazilian society. There are other times, such as in mainland China and the USA not too long ago, when government policy was designed to destroy languages other than the national. The former is sad, but understandable. The latter is inexcusable.
Standard US English is simply hideous. Dull, mushy, irritating. Unfortunately California is also the state where most people speak an English closest in pronunciation to the national standard. What does give one hope is that there is at least small and growing group of Septics who use at least some proper spellings and pronunciations.
Just loping through, keeping an eye on the comments as is my wont and I have to say that one or two hereon are within a dripping fang of losing throats, dangly bits and suchlike. 🙂 Far from dying out naturally, wolves were hunted to extinction by man (in the UK, for example), particularly those with a prediliction for
lunchsheep and cattle, so the re-introduction of wolves in a hopefully more enlightened and tolerant age could only be a good thing. I mean, what would you prefer to see from the top of a fir tree in the forest, a fully operational wolf pack or some dayglo cagouls and bobbly hats? Personally, I think it’s a no-brainer.On a different, though still revelant subject, has anyone here ever been to Papua New Guinea? Because of the mountainous terrain and still impenetrable jungle (Port Moresby remains the only national capital in the world you can drive around, but not to or from), something around 840 diverse languages are still spoken in that country. I can’t remember the exact statistics, but that’s something between a third and a half of all the extant languages in the world although every year some more fall into obsolescence. The ‘lingua franca’ today is Tok Pisin, but, as far as i know, only the blogger previously known as Cymbeline on the Dark Side also speaks it.
OZ
Bolleaux! “…. but, as far as I know, only the blogger previously known as Cymbeline on the Dark Side also speaks it over here.”
OZ
Ah, but OZ, wolves are not extinct in England. They are called Fido and Lassie and Uggi now. A perfect example of adaptation to environment. 🙂
FEEG – If you ever compare me or mine again to a Fido, Lassie or Uggi, you’ll be the first recipient of the Order of the Dripping Fang. As I have written before, dogs are merely Quislings who sold out to the enemy, although in the case of German Shepherds it was not entirely their fault – more the blame is on the British provisional wing of the Verein für Deutsche Schäferhunde which since the early eighties has bred the thin-boned, skinny ‘roachback’ Alsatian which are as about as much use for their traditional rõle as an overbred British Bulldog.
I used to breed proper German Shepherds of which von Stephanitz would have been proud – gentle as lambs when visiting hospital charities, acting as guide dogs or grooming grandchildren, but real buggers when roused or commanded. Not for nothing did the Police or the RMP call GSDs ‘snappers’, ‘land crocodiles’ or ‘hairy cruise missiles’.
OZ
OZ: If it is any consolation. Mrs FEEG has a thing about canis lupus. :-).
Mrs FEEG is obviously a lady of great distinction. Treasure her for all you’re worth amd learn accordingly.
OZ
OZ, have not been to PNG, but I met a newly engaged couple from that land once. They had grown up barely 10 miles apart but neither spoke or understood a word of the other’s native language.
Ah, Cymbeline. What a lady. I do miss her.
But OZ, would a pack of dayglo cagoules and bobble hats sit round the foot of my tree waiting for me to fall out of it so I could be part of the menu?
Wolves from Italy are now colonising the Mercantour area in France and have a tendency to attack flocks of sheep. But then the French shepherds have a tendency to leave their sheep alone to look after themselves. They – the shepherds – then write letters of complaint to the local papers.
Sipu – Exactly. Even 10 miles apart (albeit probably separated by a bloody great mountain range) the two languages can be as different as Finnish and Swahili. It is so much more than mere dialect. Cymbeline is still around occasionally on t’other side although under a different name.
Sheona – Personally I do not mind if lunch falls out of a tree or is provided courtesy of an inattentive French shepherd. The latter at least is in the natural way of things, and always has been more to the point, which is what caused a certain friction between man and lupine in the first place.
OZ
Sheona, “……the French shepherds have a tendency to leave their sheep alone to look after themselves.” Don’t they apply to the EU CAP office for compensation?
Janus, I think they apply to the French government in the first instance, because it is the government that does not allow them to hunt wolves.
OZ, I have great sympathy with the wolves, also lions and tigers, and very little for the humans who encroach on their hunting grounds, complete with cattle, sheep and goats. Sheep should not be allowed in the Mercantour National Park. There was a programme recently about an Indian tiger reserve which had a village in the middle of it. How stupid can you get! Only 1700 tigers left in India and these villagers were putting out poisoned meat to reduce the number even more. Too many people, not enough tigers.
Sheona, an interesting parallel. I presume the villagers concerned are of the lower social ranks and therefore dispensable?
I don’t know about their social ranks or castes or such, but the government was willing to pay them to move out of the tiger reserve. It might have been more sensible to move the villagers out before setting up the reserve. If you’re down to your last few tigers – a source of tourist income – why endanger them needlessly?
Sheona – Bless you on both counts. 🙂
OZ
Hello, Janus
“Just to put this into context: I’m much closer to extinction than I was 69 years ago. That’s life. Or in this case, death.”
Yes, that’s true, Janus, but you are not the last of your species are you? That’s the difference. I lament hugely the extinction of species. Their passing is not natural, it is man made. We have caused enormous damage to bio-diversity in the eye-blink of time we have existed on this planet. We need our wildlife and we are risking our own existence by its gradual extinction; think of such things as bees and bats, the pollinators. Anyway, the world would be a sad and colourless place without such diversity. We are approaching a point where large mammals, such as the rhinoceros, will only be found in zoos. Very sad, in my opinion.
As I have said on Soutie’s post, I think it’s madness to resurrect ancient species and I don’t believe it is sensible to reintroduce large species, especially to such small countries such as Britain. Wolves would be helpful in deer control, but I’m sure (as Sheona said) they would probably take domestic animals (an easy meal for them) and end up being shot or poisoned.
So, we sort of agree.
As for languages, I feel a bit the same way in regard to diversity, but can’t get excited about it. 🙂
I will end with a quote from Sheona: “Too many people, not enough tigers”. I like that.
Oh well. Never mind.