We have all seen tourism photos of islands in Southeast Asia, with sleepy palms and turquoise water. There카지노 게임 컬렉션s sunlight on the sand, Rodgers and Hammerstein wrote in the musical South Pacific, and moonlight on the sea.
Sounds idyllic. But what if climate change destroys these islands 카지노 게임 컬렉션 along with their individual cultures and languages?
The question intrigues Anastasia Riehl, although it카지노 게임 컬렉션s a little off her main path as head of the Strathy Language Unit at Queen카지노 게임 컬렉션s, which studies Canadian English.
카지노 게임 컬렉션The vast majority of the languages in the world are vulnerable,카지노 게임 컬렉션 she says. Estimates range from 50 to 90 per cent of languages facing the threat of disappearance 카지노 게임 컬렉션 and by the time experts identify which are the most vulnerable it may be too late to save them.
카지노 게임 컬렉션When I did my graduate work in linguistics, I included a specialization in Southeast Asia and studied Indonesian,카지노 게임 컬렉션 followed by field work there and in the Pacific, she says.
카지노 게임 컬렉션Southeast Asia and the Pacific do have an inordinate number of languages. You have this temperate climate and all of these islands. There카지노 게임 컬렉션s just a staggering number of islands.카지노 게임 컬렉션 (Indonesia alone has more than 17,000 islands.) 카지노 게임 컬렉션That combination of geography and climate led to many discrete groups of people and therefore all these thousands of different languages developed.카지노 게임 컬렉션
There are some 7,000 languages in the world, though the concept is a little fuzzy at times: Does one community speak a unique language, or is it a dialect? Have any la-n-guages been missed? There are some 800 languages just in Papua, New Guinea.
For a long time, these languages thrived in relative isolation from each other.
카지노 게임 컬렉션If you카지노 게임 컬렉션re several hours on foot from another village, then even though you might meet and trade, you카지노 게임 컬렉션re not communicating every day. So, the languages or dialects remain distinct.카지노 게임 컬렉션
And then the climate began to change.
Now we are adding the pressure from migration 카지노 게임 컬렉션 카지노 게임 컬렉션the fact that climate is forcing people to move and leave their communities.
카지노 게임 컬렉션You카지노 게임 컬렉션ve got sea-level rise. You카지노 게임 컬렉션ve got increasingly worse storms. Drought. All these things are having an inordinate effect on 카지노 게임 컬렉션 this part of the world in particular.카지노 게임 컬렉션
Many of the islands are low-lying, so that a rising ocean threatens to flood towns and farmland. 카지노 게임 컬렉션It카지노 게임 컬렉션s having a huge impact. And those happen to be the places where you have a number of small languages, small communities that are on coastlines. They카지노 게임 컬렉션re getting hit first in extreme ways and they happen to be some of the smallest, most vulnerable [populations] to begin with.카지노 게임 컬렉션
As these people are absorbed by larger communities, they may leave their original languages behind.
Languages have intrigued Dr. Riehl since childhood, but linguistics was an unexpected left turn.
카지노 게임 컬렉션I transferred universities my junior year. I was an English major and all of the English courses were full, so I registered for linguistics, which was cross listed, not knowing what linguistics was.카지노 게임 컬렉션 She was hooked.
카지노 게임 컬렉션Many people feel that language is so closely intertwined with identity, and we can certainly see the way that it is playing out with Indigenous languages in Canada today,카지노 게임 컬렉션 she says. When it grows more difficult to hang on to a threatened culture, 카지노 게임 컬렉션language is this very important, salient thing for them.카지노 게임 컬렉션
And the scientific world has much to learn, she believes. Much of our understanding of how our brains process language comes from studying a small number of the most common languages. 카지노 게임 컬렉션There is still so much that we don카지노 게임 컬렉션t know about how language works cognitively,카지노 게임 컬렉션 and without studying languages from many smaller communities we have only 카지노 게임 컬렉션a tiny piece of the puzzle. If we lose languages before they have been documented, we카지노 게임 컬렉션re losing valuable data. We카지노 게임 컬렉션ll never see the full picture. Many of them will be lost before we have that information.카지노 게임 컬렉션
Although she worries about the loss of these languages, she remains hopeful that there is still a great deal we can do to preserve and revitalize others.
