indigenous voices dying out

i found this sad report from thestar.com about indigenous voices dying out at a rapid pace.

and this is not limited to north america alone, sad to say. there are native voices in siberia, in hawaii even (where according to the article their language was oppressed for nearly a century).

i can't wax eloquent about this because it's just sad.

[update 0635 02.19.07]

i woke up thinking about this and realized that this travesty is a hard one to overcome. the article talks about the 'reclamation' of several languages but, that in itself is hard too. for a language to survive, it needs speakers. for speakers to properly speak a language, one needs a culture.

around the world indigenous cultures are suppressed, oppressed, and systematically destroyed every year. while the 'new world' gold rush has ceased - the continual encrouchment continues. the machinery of genocide continues to this day all around the world - from the endemic exploitation of indigenous lands to the suppression of native voices in public discourse and economic disruption there can be no surprise to see the erosion of native voices, of native culture and most obvious of native tongues from the earth.

i induced this all in a particular way. i know that there are certain things that i cannot express properly in english - the language is incapable of properly communicating concepts or communications in a natural way compared to the precision of spanish. there are similar techniques but none of them approach the deftness of the spanish tongue. ask any spanish speaker the difference between amar y querer and try to figure out how to express that richness in the english language with simlar succintness.

the same is true of this only a hundred times so. when a language dies - a way of viewing the world goes with it. it's the old cliché about an inuit having 100 words for snow. if that were true (and it's somewhat debated 'truism') then it is not anything other than the cultural recognition of over 100 different types of snow.

if we lose that - our world becomes less shiny, less diverse, and more sad.