Reviving Dying Languages

[talon]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_depth/8500108.stm

It's sad that languages and thought patterns associated with them are lost when the last speaker dies.

I feel that Dr. Suzette Hadin Elgin has one of the better solutions for preserving such languages: not through older people seeking to learn it in traditional classroom methods, but by exposing babies to the language until they are proficient in it as they grow up. We could have these last native speakers visit nurseries to tell stories to the babies and toddlers in their native language, and continue until the children are proficient. This is a problem in mobile America, where people rarely spend their childhood all in one place and parents are prone, even if they don't physically move, to changing service providers for child care or switching schools. But for those parents who leep their children in the same schools and day cares, it's a method to insure native speakers.

As one of the last native speakers of a language said in this article, everyone says they want to preserve the language, but when it comes time to do the work, nobody comes around."

Let it rebegin with the babies. Ask the last speakers of a language if they'll spend time telling stories in nurseries, daycares, and pre-schools in their native languages and interact with the children.