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Endangered Languages - Chukchi | ||
Tags: Russia | Endangered Language | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| Teango Triglot Winner TAC 2010 & 2012 Senior Member United States teango.wordpress.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5555 days ago 2210 posts - 3734 votes  Speaks: English*, German, Russian Studies: Hawaiian, French, Toki Pona | Message 1 of 11 13 February 2010 at 5:08pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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"It is common knowledge that about 90 per cent of about 6,000 languages existing in the world are expected to be replaced by dominant languages by the end of the twenty-first century."
- http://lingsib.unesco.ru/en/ That's a scary prospect really when you already love the colourful diversity of the world, and are keen to preserve its rich tapestry of cultures, languages and worthy traditions. On this note... When you immerse yourself in Russian culture, or hang out with Russian friends, it's not long before you hear the odd "Chukcha joke" or two. But how many of us have ever even heard of "Chukchas" before or know anything about them? Some already know that the Chukchi are an indigenous people from the north-east of Siberia in an area within the Arctic Circle called Chukotka, others may perhaps conjure up images of furry-hooded nomadic reindeer herders, ice-holes and igloos. What is not so well-known however is that this people are rapidly facing extinction, and the Chukchi language has been in UNESCO's "Red Book" of endangered languages for quite a while now, along with Siberian Yupik and sadly now extinct Sineniki Eskimo. After just a little research, you really start to appreciate just how fascinating and exotic the lives of these people are, and of course their language is no exception here either: "All languages have what might be called words. But the nature of a word varies from language to language. For instance take Chukchi, a language spoken in Siberia. In Chukchi, the-big-reindeer-a-person-has-killed is one unit, one word. It can't be broken up into smaller units the way it would be in English. There are many such words in Chukchi..." - Britannica Compton's Encyclopedia, "Language: The Trouble with Words" You also discover that Chukotka is not only wealthy in aboriginal folklore and tradition, but also rich in precious minerals and natural resources such as gold and oil, for which they have been long exploited. History unfurls a sad tale of this people in the 20th century: "The Chukchis are one of the most conspicuous examples to illustrate the effects of Soviet colonial policy. The rich mineral resources of Chukotka (coal, gold, tungsten, lead and mercury) were seized upon by all-Union enterprises. For instance, 40% of the Soviet Union's production of gold, or 40 billion roubles a year, was provided by Chukotka. The Russian Federation as a whole gained 300 million roubles, Chukotka got nothing. The industrial enterprises introduced to Chukotka came with an imported workforce of aliens, provisional labour eager for fast money. A badly polluted environment is the natives legacy from industrialization. The rivers once rich in fish were laid to waste and the sensitive crust of the tundra was spoiled encroaching on the pastures of the reindeer." - http://www.eki.ee/books/redbook/chukchis.shtml This is why today I'd like to shine a little light on this otherwise lesser-known people, the Chukchi, and promote "The Languages and Cultures of Northeast Asia" project website, which offers up an online dictionary and a colourful compendium of traditional folk tales set out in parallel texts (English/Japanese/Russian - Cyrillic/IPA transliteration) along with accompanying original audio. Here are some more links with cool photos, sound bites and background info for anyone interested further... http://www.faculty.uaf.edu/ffpag/chuklang.html http://www.everyculture.com/wc/Norway-to-Russia/Chukchi.html (just ignore the few initial Google ads) http://www3.aa.tufs.ac.jp/~tugusk/chukchi/chukchi_dtop_e.htm (lots of photos) http://www.sacred-texts.com/asia/cm/index.htm (myths, tales, songs, sayings and even spells) Not really expecting to bag a course in Chukchi on the shelves of my local bookstore, all I could dig up so far on the Internet is this phrasebook, some heavy-going grammar research, and a "Love Me, I Speak Chukchi" baseball hat on Amazon. If anyone else can do better please let us know and add your link here... :) Edited by Teango on 14 February 2010 at 12:18am 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| chucknorrisman Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 5447 days ago 321 posts - 435 votes Speaks: Korean*, English, Spanish Studies: Russian, Mandarin, Lithuanian, French | Message 3 of 11 14 February 2010 at 1:33pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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I'd like to learn it one day, but just for intellectual interest and bragging rights. I have no plan to visit that part of Russia...
1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Teango Triglot Winner TAC 2010 & 2012 Senior Member United States teango.wordpress.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5555 days ago 2210 posts - 3734 votes Speaks: English*, German, Russian Studies: Hawaiian, French, Toki Pona | Message 4 of 11 14 February 2010 at 1:45pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
Maybe, but you can still support your children and foster multiculturalism in society.
Sometimes languages are repressed throughout history, such as in Ireland, Wales and Scotland, but the people and their supporters believe that there is something beautiful and worth preserving in their language and culture. The Gaelic languages for example almost died out, but only due to the efforts of people who cared and government support, it now has a chance to blossom once again.
Languages like Chukchi or Gaelic are never useless, they spread their roots deep into the belief structures and traditions of a living people going back centuries, perhaps even millennia, and if a language is lost forever then so is a rich cultural heritage. Edited by Teango on 14 February 2010 at 1:51pm 5 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Blunderstein Triglot Pro Member Sweden schackhandeln.se Joined 5417 days ago 60 posts - 82 votes Speaks: Swedish*, EnglishC2, FrenchB2 Studies: German, Esperanto Personal Language Map | Message 5 of 11 14 February 2010 at 2:00pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
So you mean that 90 % of all languages in the world dying in a century is normal? It is definitely not, the situation has changed. One reason is that governments sometimes make an effort to erase minority cultures, including their languages. This has happened in many places, including Sweden where I live. Your statement reminds me of people who say "who cares if African children starve to death, let's not do anything to help them in any way". Another example: do you believe that every species that dies out due to pollution or over-hunting is useless, precisely because it dies out?
No language is useless. I believed that the people on this forum all agreed on that. 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Ari Heptaglot Senior Member Norway Joined 6581 days ago 2314 posts - 5695 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Mandarin, Cantonese Studies: Czech, Latin, German | Message 7 of 11 15 February 2010 at 5:24am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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To most people, a language is certainly nothing but a tool, and that is precisely the reason they're disappearing.
To many people, though, including a lot of people on these forums, a language is a thing of beauty and worthy of existence in its own right (as opposed to a tool, which is worthy of existence only by right of what it can be used to do). If you wish to understand this position, you can think of a small language as, say, Christmas. Now, Christmas doesn't really serve any real, practical benefit. It's not very "useful". However, a lot of people really like it and would feel sad if it disappeared as a holiday, due to nobody observing it anymore. Edited by Ari on 15 February 2010 at 5:25am 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Captain Haddock Diglot Senior Member Japan kanjicabinet.tumblr. Joined 6767 days ago 2282 posts - 2814 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: French, Korean, Ancient Greek | Message 8 of 11 15 February 2010 at 10:11am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Saying language is a tool is like saying the earth is a rock. Sure, it is that, but it is also the embodiment of human
thought, a vehicle of human culture, and a record of human history. Lose a language, and you lose so much more than a tool. 7 persons have voted this message useful |
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