Why is the loss of language so important? Per Anthropologist Wade Davis it's the canary in the coal mine, a concrete and extremely disturbing indicator of what is happening to cultures in general. And, of course, a language is not merely a body of vocabulary or a set of grammatical rules. It is a flash of the human spirit, the means by which the soul of each particular culture reaches into the material world. Every language is an old growth forest of the mind, a watershed of thought, an entire ecosystem of spiritual possibilities. It's haunting to realize that half of the languages of the world are teetering on the brink of extinction. Just think about it. What could be more lonely than to be enveloped in silence, to be the last of your people to speak your native tongue, to have no way to pass on the wisdom of the elders, to anticipate the promise of the children.
