Endangered Languages And The Importance Of Saving Them

In the short documentary Marie's Dictionary it talks about a lady named Marie Wilcox who spent more than seven years working on a dictionary based on her language and culture while her grandson and daughter assisted her. She’d continuously spend night after night writing and jotting down phrases which made me realize that Wilcox put effort to outspread her language for better use of reference in the future for her people which is known as the ‘Tribe’ and they’re now using it weekly for basic language classes.

While watching the film it had stated “more than 130 Native American Languages are endangered in the United States” it is very miserable because when a language is died out their culture and scientific knowledge wouldn’t remain the same. Frankly, when a language has died Native Speakers are left out. This means that no one can primary communicate in this language and the world loses a unique way to establish meaning as a speech signal.

Personally, when I moved here in the United States I had forgotten my home language which was Tagalog and Ilokano By that, I lived with my uncle who is American and all I’ve spoken was English so it took me about one and a half year to refurbish my home language and till this day I have improved. Several people don’t really consider their language important but it is applied to our daily lives based on our culture because it allows us to communicate with other humankind who also understands the language.

For example, speaking our home language is similar to it being applied on our daily life because speaking your home language makes others proud and allowing them to interact with family members. In my opinion, if the endangered language was mine I’d do anything in my hands to keep my language stabled as I can so that, it would be steady and will continuously be passed down but unfortunately, it would be depressing because I can’t rely although it will surely be called “remembered language” when it is endangered.

Overall, it is very important to know what is currently happening with who, what, and why some languages become ‘endangered’ and why they’re called ‘remembered language’ it’s to make us understand our world and the things we do not know because it’ll help us in the future. We are all human beings and the concept is to better understand our culture, relationships, and how we ourselves need to be representatives.