Theory of Knowledge - Course Companion for Students Marija Uzunova Dang Arvin Singh Uzunov Dang

II. Perspectives
that 90% will disappar in this ntury
warn
2018).
(Strohli
srv as an organi rpository of
Languags
knowldg, rvaling th historis,
human
and valus of popls, and di whn
ulturs
no longr spak th languag. Th
hildrn
Wad Davis has said that of
anthropologist
languags that urrntly xist, half ar not
th
taught to hildrn, and ar at a vry ral
ing
of dying.
risk
this really means is that within a generation
What
two, we are witnessing the loss of fully half of
or
legacy. This is the hidden backdrop of
humanity’s
age. our
th 7,000 languags spokn y human ings,
Of
mr 23 ar spokn y half of th world’s
a
whil aout 3,000 ar ndangrd.
population,
only is that a trrifyingly lonly and
Not
prospt for thir last spakrs, it poss
isolating
widr loss to humanity and our olltiv
a
is a misonption that th loss of
Thr
languags—and of ultural divrsity
ths
gnral—is a natural phnomnon that
in
progrss. But nithr hang, nor
aompanis
ar a thrat to ultur; rathr, as
thnology,
assrts, it is powr and “th rud fa of
Davis
Th grat tragdy is that “virant,
divrsity.
living ulturs and languags ar
dynami,
ford out of xistn” (Davis 2003). Th
ing
ntury alon witnssd multipl larg-
20th
stat moilizations against Indignous
sal
for instan in Canada, Australia and
languags,
oftn through fatory shooling. Th fors
Tit,
politis of olonization, rsour xtration
and
uranization hav n ovrwhlming for
and
ommunitis, oftn laving only offiial
many
languags prottd. Davis furthr xpands
stat
th xtrnal fors that hav ausd th dath
on
may be industrial as the case of the
They
forestry practices that have destroyed
egregious
subsistence base of the nomadic Penan in the
the
of Sarawak in Borneo. In Nigeria the once
rainforests
soils of the Ogoni in the Niger delta can no
fertile
be farmed because of toxic euents of the
longer
industry. Elsewhere the calamity may
petrochemical
caused by epidemic disease as in the case of
be
Yanomami who have suered dreadful mortality
the
to exotic pathogens brought into their lives by
due
gold miners who have recently invaded their
the
Or the agent of destruction may be ideology,
lands.
in the case of the crude domination of Tibet by
as
communist Chinese. But in every case these
the
cultures that are overwhelmed by powerful
are
forces beyond their capacity to adapt to.
external
observation is in fact a source of considerable
This
For it implies that if humans are the agents
optimism.
cultural destruction, we can also be facilitators of
of
survival.
cultural
do not have a consistent and clear boundary
We
dialects and languages. Some languages
between
be very similar and some dialects very
may
two words are not particularly useful
dissimilar—the
describing actual language variation, according to
in
John McWhorter, who has said “dialects is all
linguist
is” (2016). The hundreds of “dialects” spoken
there
China and in Tibet, for example, are very dissimilar
in
not mutually comprehensible to speakers of other
and
States often promote dissimilar languages
“dialects”.
4
of many languags this ntury.
(Davis 2003)
knowldg systms.
(Davis 2003)
“Dialects is all there is”
Figure 4.3
Cornish became extinct in the late 18th century before
a process to revive the language began in the early 20th century
domination” that thratn ultural and linguisti
94