Eyak Language

I feel that we should not go to far to try and preserve a dying language. I feel like if anything should be done it should be something similar to what Chief Marie Smith Jones did to preserve the Eyak language. Not so much the idea of fighting its extinction but creating dictionaries and recordings of the language. This way the language is never entirely lost, even when people no longer speak it. It is still there for people to look upon for cultural and historical reasons. Some people would disagree with this saying that it is extremely important to stop languages from becoming extinct, that the languages are extremely important to people’s cultures. However I feel that fighting to keep a language alive is almost impossible. If it is dying out it is dying out for a reason, whether it is issues with the construction or popularity of another language. In the world now communication, and global communication are huge. Fighting to keep dying languages alive is almost weakening these peoples ability to succeed in the ‘modern age’. Plus if we were to fight extremely hard to save languages the money spent would be immense. Even simply trying to create dictionaries for each and every of the hundreds of dying languages would add up a pretty hefty cost. If people say that they are losing their culture because their language is dying it makes me wonder why it is then dying in the first place if they aren’t keeping it alive if it means so much to them. I think that the IB supporting the International Mother Language Day is great. I think it shows how much the IB does want its students to broaden their horizons. I also think it is helping younger generations to connect with other languages, instead of keeping one as like a “master language” in which everybody uses. I feel as though this can help decrease the number of languages that are dying.