In Sunday School a couple of weeks ago I asked a question about language. I framed it something like this: “Why was it so important to preserve the language of Lehi’s fathers that they had to go back and get the plates?” Most of the class looked at me funny and then several people patiently explained that without the written word they wouldn’t be able to read the scriptures and their history would be lost.
Which wasn’t exactly what I was getting at. I’ve been reading A Little Book of Language by David Crystal, and it’s a fantastic book—really well written and interesting. According to Crystal, there are about 6,000 languages in existence today. Two thousand of those are spoken in Africa. A language disappears (meaning the last native speaker dies) about every three weeks. So over the next couple hundred years, thousands of languages will be lost—just as Lehi’s language was lost long ago.
Despite the fact that languages disappear with the last native speaker, people on Earth continue to be able to communicate with one another. If we were to map out the development of languages, I wonder if we would start with one or just a handful of languages, and if they would spread out like a huge tree from there, and if now those branches are being whittled down to just a handful or possibly just one language at the other end.
If I were one of the few last English speakers in the world, would I fight to keep it alive, or would I adopt the more widely-used, influential language around me? I’m not sure. But where Nephi and Lehi and their families were going, was there already a language in use? Why not just use that one?
William Hamblin of BYU’s FARMS department explains that there were several “reformed Egyptian” languages and scripts as people mixed their own alphabets and hieroglyphic characters with others in the search for an efficient and easy way to keep records. I wonder what Lehi’s reformed Egyptian looked like. Would Mormon have been able to understand centuries of writings? I have a hard time reading some things that were written in English hundreds of years ago. That must have been some job.
Your question was very interesting. You say we are losing languages every three weeks but I wonder if we’re creating new ones too or are we just losing them.
ReplyDeleteI really did not know there are more than 6000 languages in the world being used. Thanks for sharing such a valuable information. These language difference is the beauty of world.
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