Magazine features article on dwindling Salish language

The December 2007 - January 2008 issue of "Natural History" magazine features an article on the loss of the Salish-Pend d'Oreille language.

Written by linguist Sarah Gray Thomason, the article is also featured on the magazine's website (http://www.naturalhistorymag.com/).

The article, entitled "At a Loss for Words," points out that not only is the Salish-Pend d'Oreille language on the brink of disappearing, more than half the world's 6,000 languages will be gone by the end of the century.

Thomason writes about the late John Peter Paul's determination, even at the age of 91 and in the midst of a stomach cancer health crisis, to continue going to the elders' meetings at the Longhouse to work on the Salish language dictionary. She also refers to Louis Adams' experiences of being whipped in a Flathead Reservation public school for "speaking Indian." Also mentioned in the article are Harriet Whitworth, Dolly Linsebigler, and Josephine Quequesah.

"The circumstances that brought Salish-Pend d'Oreille to the brink of extinction differ from the stories of other communities only in the details," Thomason writes. "All dwindling languages fight against time in the face of increasing pressures to speak a dominant language. English, Spanish, French, Portuguese, Arabic, Russian, Mandarin, Quechua (before the Inca Empire was destroyed by invading Spaniards), and other expanding languages have all been spoken by powerful outsiders who imposed their own order and language on subjugated, or at least less powerful, peoples. Two obvious questions arise here: Just how widespread is the phenomenon of language loss? And, more fundamentally, so what?"

It all boils down to world-view - ways of seeing the world, the author points out.

"Languages place special emphases on things and concepts that are important to their speakers: shapes of objects, meanings of certain plants and animals, fundamental ways of seeing the world," Thomason writes. "For instance, the word for 'automobile' in Salish-Pend d'Oreille, is named for the appearance of tire tracks - literally, 'it has wrinkled feet!'"