It is widely reported that many indigenous languages are “dead”. What is less often discussed, however, is that the language in question does not disappear naturally.
Instead, their speakers are often wiped out by outsiders. Even today, where indigenous people live, their language can still be “lost”. There may be many reasons, but they are almost always rooted in forced assimilation into industrial society.
This article was first published in Renaissance and Ecologists Magazine. understand more.
According to the Institute for Endangered Languages and Dialects, the last fluent speaker of the language dies every two weeks, followed by “hundreds of generations of traditional knowledge encoded in these ancestral languages”.
drug
This is not surprising, considering that 2 million Aboriginal children around the world are “educated” in factory schools, institutions created specifically to integrate tribal children into mainstream society.
Death is not far from these places. The purposeful removal of cultural and linguistic ties is a slow form of genocide that has devastating effects not only on entire peoples, but also on the environment.
Language and knowledge are closely related. Knowledge is only useful if it can be expressed, used and shared.
Understanding where people live – forests, plains, savannahs, mountains, deserts, tundra – and what they can offer humanity – food, medicine, real solutions to curb climate change – is important to all of us critical.
extraction
It doesn’t seem like much to be able to talk about the tiniest nuances of these environments, but the butterfly effect of these conversations is huge.
The Awá people of Brazil call their homeland Harakwá, which means “the place we know”. Since ancient times, they have been studying, managing and tending their lands, passing on and developing their knowledge from generation to generation.
They depend entirely on their land for food, spirit, medicine – in short, life – and the land depends on the Ava people to protect and nurture it.
But their land has been devastated by the greedy extraction of sugar cane, part of which is grown for biofuel and gold mining.
permanent
Without their lands, the Ava people would not be able to survive, nor would the enormous biodiversity found in their lands. The Ava language (Guaya), which carried hundreds of years of ecological knowledge, will be lost.
This is not unique to the Apo – it is repeated across the globe, with those who live closest to the natural environment being pushed to the edge and their lands stolen and exploited for natural resources.
If we lose biodiversity, we lose human diversity and vice versa.
Without both, humanity will be plunged into the next dark age from which we may not be able to recover. Defending Indigenous rights, lands and lives has never been more important.
this author
Paula Zamorano Osorio is Survival International. This article was first published in Renaissance and Ecologists Magazine. understand more.
