Dec
23
Grumpy Old Men: Taking a language to the grave
Two old men in Mexico have taken that frequent childhood taunt “not if you were the last person on earth” to an extreme level.
Zoque, an indigenous language found in Mexico, is on the verge of extinction according to this article because the last two-known speakers of the language refuse to speak to one another. I found the following interesting factoid: “In 1960, according to a Mexican Government survey, there were 367 speakers of Zoque from Tabasco. In the early 1970s, linguists could only find 40 people who spoke the language.” And so, now it appears there are only two left.
Does the United Nations have an ambassador of linguistc preservation? Because it’s time for an intervention.
December 26th, 2007 at 7:30 pm
[...] Dr. Fischer lays it all out. Because of technology and the influence of the media, more languages are becoming extinct or less widely spoken, giving rise to even more influence and power of currently widely spoken [...]