A Philosophical Discussion On Ethno-Linguistic Diversity Posted On Tuesday, November 2, 2010 By James Satrapa (an Australian professional on the social sciences) and Jose P. Dacudao Dr. Dacudao: There is such a thing as ‘language extinction’. It was happening to the Baltic peoples, whose populations after two generations of Russian immigration and enforced teaching of Russian in schools slowly became Russified, such that by 1992, nearly half of the Baltic population could not speak Latvian, Estonian, or Lithuanian. Language defines one’s ethno-linguistic identity. You do not know Latvian? You are not one. (In our case, you do not know a Visayan language, or a Bicolano language, or Ilocano, or Kapampangan? You are not a Visayan or a Bicolano, or Ilocano, or Kapampangan.) The laws of newly independent Latvia is born out of the need for the survival of the Latvians as a distinct ethno-lingusitic people. History has shown so many times that the only certain way to preserve an ethnic people’s identity is by having its language taught in the schools of their traditional areas, so that the children learn it and give it the high social status it deserves. Ethno-linguistic peoples who have lost their languages are now lost in history, and it is occurring at an accelerating rate. Out of the 7000 or so languages of the world, one is dying per week. In a few more centuries, much of humanity’s cultural diversity will be severely reduced, for if nothing is done, there will only be around two dozen languages, and the ethno-linguistic peoples that speak them, left out of thousands. The Latvians are lucky that political independence came in the nick of time. There is still a substantial part of its population that speak Latvian as their native tongue. With independence came the political will and power to have Latvian taught in the schools of the country to all children. This would effectively acculturate descendants of immigrants who never learned Latvian. With its laws requiring immigrants and their descendants to learn Latvian, the proportion of native Latvian speakers will increase to levels safer from extinction. I wish I could say the same thing for the non-Tagalog peoples of my country, marginalized, demoted to second class citizens, and brainwashed to reject their own centuries-old pre-Spanish languages and ethno-linguistic identities for the sake of a ‘Nationalism’ that essentially defines a Filipino to be a Tagalog. Individuals like me who wish to save our dying ethno-linguistic peoples are branded almost as traitors. Yet if such culturally destructive Nationalism is accepted without question, in 300 years, the Republic of the Philippines will essentially become the Republic of the Tagalista, as our 160 or so languages are whittled down to one. Similar problems exist all over the former colonies of Europe and the USA in Asia and Africa. When the European colonial master left, an ethnic group would often take over in the colonial center and implement what is known as internal colonialism. The Europeans have left quite a mess in their former colonies, ethnic peoples scattered across several political states, or worse, ethnic peoples wholly in the provinces of one political Unitarian state that is propagating a one-nation one language educational curriculum. That would effectively kill off thousands of languages and the peoples that they define. The only silver lining here is the example of such peoples as the Latvians, once on the brink of extinction, but still surviving. I doubt if many of the people here will know what I am talking about. Perhaps if you are a Catalonian or Basque in Spain, or a Corsican in France, or a Welshman or Scot or Irish in Britain, or one of the Polynesian people in Hawaii, or a Navajo or other native Americans in the USA, or a patriotic Bicolano in the Philippines, you would know about a people of their soul bereft. Tagalista: What you have is a 300 year old paranoia and persecution mentality… James Satrapa: I’m not one of the indigenous people of Australia, but a son of European refugees who fled Hungary in 1945, but I was born in Australia and I can tell you the situation you describe is just as vivid in this country. There were something like 3-400 indigenous and unique languages in Australia before European settlement, and in the 200 years since settlement began, many of these languages – and their mother cultures – have become extinct. Almost all of the remaining language are endangered, with many of them having only a very few speakers who use it as a first language. The destruction of indigenous culture in Australia was accelerated by a doctrine of , meaning “unoccupied land”, until recent decisions by the High Court, starting with the famous “Mabo” judgment, recognised native title…but with significant caveats mainly revolving around pastoral and mining leases. The doctrine of terra nullius sprang from the notion that the indigenous people – who were exclusively hunters and gathers – did not “own” the land as there was a complete absence of horticulture, and therefore permanent settlements of any description. The reasons for the absence of horticulture are now well documented, namely that Australia contained no indigenous plants or animals that could be domesticated, but the result of this was the early conviction that the hunters and gatherers of this island continent were “primitive” and that land could be settled at will as these “primitives” did not own the land. Resistance of course was met with imprisonment and death. Many more were killed, both accidentally and deliberately, by introduced diseases to which indigenous people had no resistance, especially small pox, but also measles and many other diseases to which Europeans had developed resistance due to their proximity with domestic animals. Today, less than 2% of the Australian population is indigenous, and most of them are living in conditions that are substandard, over-represented in all the wrong statistics relating to incarceration, disease, infant mortality, longevity, employment and education – and language, and almost unrepresented in the nation’s governing institutions at all three levels of government, federal, State and municipal. The destruction of indigenous languages is a tragedy in several ways, as they are the languages of cultures that have an unbroken oral tradition extending to Paleolithic times, at least 40,000 years ago, and probably more. The hunting and gathering lifestyle of indigenous cultures in Australia meant that the languages are fully developed around concepts of kinship and their means of living, particularly as it describes the knowledge that has been handed down over the millenia of Australian flora and fauna, and the complex seasonal cycles that meteorologists are just beginning to gain a preliminary understanding. People penetrated to the hot arid centre of Australia 20,000 years ago. To be able to live in central Australia armed with little more than your knowledge of the land, without the technology that is today taken for granted, can only be fully appreciated if one understands the climate and environment of central Australia. Someone once said that to understand the nuances with which indigenous speakers express kinship relations were more difficult than acquiring a PhD in pure mathematics. Dr. Dacudao: Well spoken, James. You might not be aware of it, but Australia’s indigenous languages are not Polynesian, like in the rest of the Pacific – Indian Ocean archipelagic setting. Many of the Australian indigenous languages are as different from each other as the Polynesian language family is different from Sino-Tibetan, or Indo-European. This is astoundingly unique. It could be explained by the theory that the Australian aboriginal peoples settled the continent perhaps even 60,000 years ago (or as you say 40,000 years ago). It’s too bad that many of them have probably gone extinct, and the rest are marginalized. It has been happening in my country too, the marginalization and slide to extinction of the non-Tagalog Polynesian Philippine languages and the ancient ethno-linguistic peoples of the Philippines that speak them, although circumstances differ. As a comparison, the language family nearest Australia, the Polynesian language family, is theorized as arising from a proto language in present-day Taiwan/Formosa about 7000 years ago, or alternatively from present-day Indonesia. Thus all of the present Polynesian languages are still relatively similar. For instance, the counting terms for the first 10 numerals, (in the two major Visayan languages – in Sugbuanon Visaya usa, duha, tulo, upat, lima, unum, pito, walo, siyam, napulo; in Hiligaynon/Ilonggo Visaya isa, duha/duwa, tatlo, apat, lima, anum, pito, walo, siyam, napulo) – is similar from Madagascar off the coast of Africa to the Easter islands off the coast of South America. I am pretty sure any kibitzer from Indonesia, Malaysia, indigenous Hawaii, and so on will recognize the affinities. It is a very encouraging thing that your government is now slowly recognizing Australia’s indigenous languages. I have read that the ‘root’ (near the original proto-language) Polynesian languages of Taiwan is also now slowly being recognized, both by the Chinese and quite importantly by the remaining indigenous (although by now racially mixed with Chinese) Polynesian themselves, whose younger generations are trying to rediscover their ancient ethnic identity, after mostly having ‘forgotten’ to speak their ancestral Polynesian languages. I am not sure, but is possible that terms for kinship may have a direct bearing with the strength of social relationships between relatives. For instance, in the Hiligaynon and Karay-a Visayan languages (spoken by the Visayan ethnic group known as Ilonggo), there are very detailed terms in common everyday usage for the exact kinship relationship of relatives to each other. Ist cousin is ‘pakaisa’, second cousin is pakduha, third cousin is pakatlo, 4th cousin is pakap-at, 5th cousin is pakalima, and so on. To denote, say a niece or nephew (the native term is ‘hinablos’ or more rarely ‘pumangkon’) of a second cousin, you say quite naturally ‘hinablos sa pakaduha’. And so on. It is very easy to trace exact lineage this way right in an everyday conversation. Furthermore, the native Ilonggo term for ‘cousin’ seems to have dropped from everyday usage, and so if two cousins meet, if they are to avoid using a borrowed foreign English term as ‘cousin’, they actually have to trace their lineage through their closest ancestor! It boils down to the fact that there is a common everyday term for the specific type of cousin, 1st cousin = pakaisa, bu no direct common everyday term for cousin itself. Thus, if an Ilonggo meets a relative, in order to use a kinship term, he has to find out his exact kinship with this new relative. – What kind of cousin are you? My grandmother (‘lola’) A, is the younger sister of your grandfather (‘lolo’) B, she is therefore younger sister or ‘manghod’ of your grandfather. A child of A, who happens to be my mother (‘iloy’, ‘nanay’), would therefore be 1st cousin (‘pakaisa’) to your own mother who is the daughter of B. Therefore, we must be ‘pakaduha’ (seconds cousins). Your child must be my ‘hinablos sa pakaduha’. Ilonggos who meet relatives for the first time frequently have to go through this ritual of tracing ancestral lineages, brought about by their peculiar language. Just to give you and idea.. (“,)
Posted on: Wed, 06 Aug 2014 00:03:57 +0000
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