The official languages of Malaysia are Bahasa Malaysia and English, but the country's citizens speak numerous languages. Among those languages is Mos, which has under 500 native speakers. Unless those few are especially fecund, their language is doomed. If they don't produce more speakers soon, they might as well name their youngest Uncas, or maybe Chingachgook, after James Fenimore Cooper's character in the Leatherstocking Tales, you recall, the series of novels that includes The Last of the Mohicans.
Consider that you speak a rather widespread language. You're reading this, so I assume you know English, and you have little concern about being the last speaker of your language. With almost 400 million people for whom English is the native tongue and another billion or so for whom it is a second language, the language you speak provides a commonality for people of every continent. But Mos, now there's a different story. It's way down on the list of popular languages. Can you imagine? "If you speak English, press one; ¿hablas español?...” You get the idea. What number would Mos be on the phone? "If you speak Mos, please enter 6,909"--the current count of languages according to the Linguistic Society of America.*
Mos will probably pass out of use as so many languages have. I'm guessing that you aren't even willing to help Mos-speakers preserve their heritage by learning the language so you can pass on the culture to your great grandchildren.
When you pass away, somewhere there will be a record of your existence though fewer and fewer people will be interested in reading it. For the foreseeable future, however, the record will be understandable: “She was really special. Blah, blah, blah….” Put your physical attributes aside and think of how intimately your identity is tied to your language. If that language goes, you go unless you’ve done something of “historic value,” a dubious assignation since that might put you in the company of Timur the Lame.
Other than physical attributes like shape, size, and color, do you think it is possible to have an identity outside language? I’m not talking about your ability to speak or write or even think. I’m talking about the context in which you live, a context of language-speakers who know you and who have words to identify you, from your name to your characteristic attitudes and behaviors. Do you find it interesting that we say, “She will live on in our memories”? That might be true for those who knew her personally and for whom she is a collection of memories attached to feelings, but for those who are on the periphery, such preservation is short and down the line of a few generations is only a matter for historians who understand the language. Is it because there have been too many humans, so we remember only a few who had either fame or notoriety.
Quick! Name one current speaker of Mos. Can’t? Maybe I have the wrong name. It’s also called Ten’edn and Tonga, you know; it’s similar to Kensiu. How about someone in the history of Mos-speakers? Are you telling me that the Mani people (also, Maniq) of Thailand have no internationally known members like Princess Diana? Yeah, I heard of her. Or Frank Sinatra? Wasn’t he some famous American singer whose voice fills the background of Maggiano’s Italian restaurants and still can be heard over Sirius/XM. Enrico Caruso? You got me there. Wait! An opera singer from a long time ago, but I’m sure he wasn’t Maniq. Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria?** Covered him in history class, I think. Er wurde erschossen. Again, not a Maniq.
Entire cultures have come and gone to be remembered only by some writers, linguists, anthropologists, artists, and historians. And the more geographically limited the group and its influence, the harder it is to find something to remember about them. The people who speak Mos have been around for a long time, possibly since the Neolithic Age. Interesting: 10,000 years and yet you can’t name one of them! Yes, I’m guessing we are witnessing another extinction event. What with five major extinctions since the Cambrian Period, who wants to focus on the thousands of other extinctions, those extinctions of language and the memories of all whose identity was framed by those languages?
Think about people in North America, a few hundred million who haven’t been on the land they occupy since Neolithic time. How many of them can speak the language of their ancestors as those ancestors would have spoken it? What about you? Even if you are genetically English, you probably don’t speak Anglo-Saxon or even Middle English. The original Beowulf is impossible without study. Chaucer’s lines are difficult at best. Heck, you probably have trouble with some of Shakespeare’s lines.***
So, what will become of Mos-speakers and their “Chingachgook”? There are still more than 3,000 descendants of the Mohicans, Mahicans, Muheconneok, Muhhekunneuw, Mohiingan, Mohegan—or whatever they might wish to be called—so, Uncas and Chingachgook, though fictional, weren’t the last though descendants of actual Mohicans might be called Stockbridge-Munsee. But only 350-500 Maniqs. Ten thousand years in the vicinity of Malaysia, and for the Maniq it’s all not only dwindling away, but also, apparently, coming to a rather abrupt end in the context of 10 millennia. That end might not come in your lifetime, but rather in a few generations. Lost with the loss of a language, subsumed first by a local culture and second by a widening globalism, Maniq culture might exist only in some article or government report, but not in the minds of the living.
Feeling compassionate? Think you want to do something if only for nostalgia’s sake? Here’s a CNN report from January 20, 2017: “ISIS destroys façade of Roman theater in Syrian city of Palmyra.” And then there’s the story of Mahammed Sa’im al-Dahr who in his fanaticism damaged the Sphinx in 1378 A.D. (the locals supposedly killed him for the crime against the ancient structure). And Rembrandt’s “Night Watch” was attacked several times. The point is a question: Do you think many care that both a language and a culture that hark back 10,000 years might disappear? And even if they did care—as, no doubt, you most certainly do—could they or you do anything about the demise of Maniq culture? No one can stand around forever keeping watch over artworks, graveyards, and ancient cultures. How far back do the mementos of your ancestors go? You can’t keep that old stuff around forever even if you are a nostalgic hoarder. That’s why we have antique shops, museums, libraries, and eBay.
Someday, hopefully for the sake of your identity in the long distant future, a descendant of yours will say, “Why are we keeping this old stuff? I need room for my holographic projector.” And your urn or tombstone might be the subject of teenage or fanatic vandalism similar to the 2017 attacks on statues of George Washington (one of those characters who seems to have escaped the anonymity under which so many Maniq have slipped from lasting memory over the past 10,000 years).
Anyway, today when you look in the mirror, imagine having an identity void of language in a world of forgetfulness under the pressure of time.
*Linguistic Society of America. How many languages are there in the world? [As though the Society could count languages elsewhere in the universe!] Online at https://www.linguisticsociety.org/content/how-many-languages-are-there-world
**Er wurde erschossen: “He was shot.”
***Beowulf: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_K13GJkGvDw
Chaucer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e0ybnLRf3gU
Shakespeare: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6i3J17Jp0ag
Consider that you speak a rather widespread language. You're reading this, so I assume you know English, and you have little concern about being the last speaker of your language. With almost 400 million people for whom English is the native tongue and another billion or so for whom it is a second language, the language you speak provides a commonality for people of every continent. But Mos, now there's a different story. It's way down on the list of popular languages. Can you imagine? "If you speak English, press one; ¿hablas español?...” You get the idea. What number would Mos be on the phone? "If you speak Mos, please enter 6,909"--the current count of languages according to the Linguistic Society of America.*
Mos will probably pass out of use as so many languages have. I'm guessing that you aren't even willing to help Mos-speakers preserve their heritage by learning the language so you can pass on the culture to your great grandchildren.
When you pass away, somewhere there will be a record of your existence though fewer and fewer people will be interested in reading it. For the foreseeable future, however, the record will be understandable: “She was really special. Blah, blah, blah….” Put your physical attributes aside and think of how intimately your identity is tied to your language. If that language goes, you go unless you’ve done something of “historic value,” a dubious assignation since that might put you in the company of Timur the Lame.
Other than physical attributes like shape, size, and color, do you think it is possible to have an identity outside language? I’m not talking about your ability to speak or write or even think. I’m talking about the context in which you live, a context of language-speakers who know you and who have words to identify you, from your name to your characteristic attitudes and behaviors. Do you find it interesting that we say, “She will live on in our memories”? That might be true for those who knew her personally and for whom she is a collection of memories attached to feelings, but for those who are on the periphery, such preservation is short and down the line of a few generations is only a matter for historians who understand the language. Is it because there have been too many humans, so we remember only a few who had either fame or notoriety.
Quick! Name one current speaker of Mos. Can’t? Maybe I have the wrong name. It’s also called Ten’edn and Tonga, you know; it’s similar to Kensiu. How about someone in the history of Mos-speakers? Are you telling me that the Mani people (also, Maniq) of Thailand have no internationally known members like Princess Diana? Yeah, I heard of her. Or Frank Sinatra? Wasn’t he some famous American singer whose voice fills the background of Maggiano’s Italian restaurants and still can be heard over Sirius/XM. Enrico Caruso? You got me there. Wait! An opera singer from a long time ago, but I’m sure he wasn’t Maniq. Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria?** Covered him in history class, I think. Er wurde erschossen. Again, not a Maniq.
Entire cultures have come and gone to be remembered only by some writers, linguists, anthropologists, artists, and historians. And the more geographically limited the group and its influence, the harder it is to find something to remember about them. The people who speak Mos have been around for a long time, possibly since the Neolithic Age. Interesting: 10,000 years and yet you can’t name one of them! Yes, I’m guessing we are witnessing another extinction event. What with five major extinctions since the Cambrian Period, who wants to focus on the thousands of other extinctions, those extinctions of language and the memories of all whose identity was framed by those languages?
Think about people in North America, a few hundred million who haven’t been on the land they occupy since Neolithic time. How many of them can speak the language of their ancestors as those ancestors would have spoken it? What about you? Even if you are genetically English, you probably don’t speak Anglo-Saxon or even Middle English. The original Beowulf is impossible without study. Chaucer’s lines are difficult at best. Heck, you probably have trouble with some of Shakespeare’s lines.***
So, what will become of Mos-speakers and their “Chingachgook”? There are still more than 3,000 descendants of the Mohicans, Mahicans, Muheconneok, Muhhekunneuw, Mohiingan, Mohegan—or whatever they might wish to be called—so, Uncas and Chingachgook, though fictional, weren’t the last though descendants of actual Mohicans might be called Stockbridge-Munsee. But only 350-500 Maniqs. Ten thousand years in the vicinity of Malaysia, and for the Maniq it’s all not only dwindling away, but also, apparently, coming to a rather abrupt end in the context of 10 millennia. That end might not come in your lifetime, but rather in a few generations. Lost with the loss of a language, subsumed first by a local culture and second by a widening globalism, Maniq culture might exist only in some article or government report, but not in the minds of the living.
Feeling compassionate? Think you want to do something if only for nostalgia’s sake? Here’s a CNN report from January 20, 2017: “ISIS destroys façade of Roman theater in Syrian city of Palmyra.” And then there’s the story of Mahammed Sa’im al-Dahr who in his fanaticism damaged the Sphinx in 1378 A.D. (the locals supposedly killed him for the crime against the ancient structure). And Rembrandt’s “Night Watch” was attacked several times. The point is a question: Do you think many care that both a language and a culture that hark back 10,000 years might disappear? And even if they did care—as, no doubt, you most certainly do—could they or you do anything about the demise of Maniq culture? No one can stand around forever keeping watch over artworks, graveyards, and ancient cultures. How far back do the mementos of your ancestors go? You can’t keep that old stuff around forever even if you are a nostalgic hoarder. That’s why we have antique shops, museums, libraries, and eBay.
Someday, hopefully for the sake of your identity in the long distant future, a descendant of yours will say, “Why are we keeping this old stuff? I need room for my holographic projector.” And your urn or tombstone might be the subject of teenage or fanatic vandalism similar to the 2017 attacks on statues of George Washington (one of those characters who seems to have escaped the anonymity under which so many Maniq have slipped from lasting memory over the past 10,000 years).
Anyway, today when you look in the mirror, imagine having an identity void of language in a world of forgetfulness under the pressure of time.
*Linguistic Society of America. How many languages are there in the world? [As though the Society could count languages elsewhere in the universe!] Online at https://www.linguisticsociety.org/content/how-many-languages-are-there-world
**Er wurde erschossen: “He was shot.”
***Beowulf: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_K13GJkGvDw
Chaucer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e0ybnLRf3gU
Shakespeare: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6i3J17Jp0ag
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