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For the wind cries of late in the whispering leaves
I don't like the death of words. I know that in the history of our planet, more languages than I have never heard of have taken shape and told their worlds and been lost. But I never like to learn that another has been allowed to die; destroyed.
As the spoken language died, so did the stories of tricky Creator-Raven and the magical loon, of giant animals and tiny homunculi with fish-spears no bigger than a matchstick. People forgot why "hat" was the same word as "hammer", or why the word for a leaf, kultahl, was also the word for a feather, as though deciduous trees and birds shared one organic life. They lost the sense that lumped apples, beads and pills together as round, foreign, possibly deceiving things. They neglected the taboo that kept fish and animals separate, and would not let fish-skin and animal hide be sewn in the same coat; and they could not remember exactly why they built little wooden huts over gravestones, as if to give more comfortable shelter to the dead.
Marie Smith, the last speaker of the Eyak language, died on January 21st, aged 89.
As the spoken language died, so did the stories of tricky Creator-Raven and the magical loon, of giant animals and tiny homunculi with fish-spears no bigger than a matchstick. People forgot why "hat" was the same word as "hammer", or why the word for a leaf, kultahl, was also the word for a feather, as though deciduous trees and birds shared one organic life. They lost the sense that lumped apples, beads and pills together as round, foreign, possibly deceiving things. They neglected the taboo that kept fish and animals separate, and would not let fish-skin and animal hide be sewn in the same coat; and they could not remember exactly why they built little wooden huts over gravestones, as if to give more comfortable shelter to the dead.
Marie Smith, the last speaker of the Eyak language, died on January 21st, aged 89.
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Ar dheis Dé lena anam, is go mbeidh a teanga ard i Néamh.
I'm saddened as well. Death may be inevitable, but a death like this... all words fail me.
Well, I'm told the Pequots, at least, are working towards reviving their language, and I hope they will. They've got money and determination. It'll not be the same, but I'd like to see them do it, if only to spit in the eye of the Economist and their experts.
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Translation?
Well, I'm told the Pequots, at least, are working towards reviving their language, and I hope they will.
If they can resurrect Hebrew . . .
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"May her soul be at God's right hand, and her tongue loud in Heaven." (Teanga has the same ambiguity as "tongue" in English. Or French langue might be a better analogy, as the word's the most common equivalent to English "language.")
If they can resurrect Hebrew . . .
Indeed. Although Hebrew of course had the advantage over Pequot of an extensive body of written material.
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Today is an appropriately mournful day, though.
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What else is today? Or is it only bleak and shrouded where you are, too?
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Nine
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I want to know why the word for hat was the same as the word for hammer.
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I'd wish to know that as well.
Just guessing
The woodpecker.
Who hammers hard with their hat?
Only the woodpecker.
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I would believe you.
Re: Just guessing
The verb "to buy" in Irish--ceannaigh--is akin to the word for "head"--ceann. Many people believe that it's because back in the day what you bought was livestock. It may be the purest false etymology, but it sounds true.
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I sent the link to my parents, as my father teaches the odd linguistics class (or has much in the past) and is a bit of a language nut (he'd say he's just a plain old nut, and then make some silly pun, because that's the way he is).
He's also been doing a bit of fisheries fieldwork in Alaska lately.
It's just so terribly sad, to think of the things she knew that nobody in her family cared to learn, and that now are gone forever.
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What field is he in?
It's just so terribly sad, to think of the things she knew that nobody in her family cared to learn, and that now are gone forever.
Yes. I'm glad there was at least a scholar who wanted to learn from her, but it's not the same kind of tradition as a family. I know a couple of Yiddish folksongs that I learned as lullabies from my mother, as she learned them from hers; they aren't rare by any stretch of the imagination, but I still feel lucky to have heard them first at home.
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Yes ... it feels like the world is eroding away a little bit more each time another language (or species ... ) disappears.
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I hadn't realized Eyak was the first known Alaskan language to die out. I don't know if that makes it worse: but it feels like the first step perilously taken, pebbles to a landslide; I don't want to see the rest disappear as well.
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