BBC Learnings · Section 18

Saving dead languages

I'm Neil. And I'm Phil. And now that we've done our hellos, let's hear some greetings in different languages from around the world.

Level: B2 · 46 sentences

Transcript

  1. I'm Neil. And I'm Phil. And now that we've done our hellos, let's hear some greetings in different languages from around the world.
  2. But what do these languages have in common?
  3. I'm afraid I don't know what they have in common because I don't recognise any of them.
  4. Well, sadly, the one thing uniting these languages is that they're all endangered.
  5. We often hear about animals at risk of extinction, but a recent study by the Australian National University found that out of the world's 7,000 existing languages,
  6. half are under threat. but what can be done to save languages from dying out?
  7. That's what we'll be discussing in this programme. And as usual, we'll be learning some useful new vocabulary as well. But first, I have a question for you, Phil,
  8. and it's about a country which used to be one of the most linguistically rich places on Earth, Australia.
  9. Before European settlers arrived in the 1800s, Australia had over 200 languages spoken by the native Aboriginal people who had lived there for thousands of years.
  10. Many Aboriginal languages were destroyed by the brutal laws of the Australian government at the time.
  11. However, some survived. So, which of the following Aboriginal languages is still spoken today?
  12. Is it... or c. Gagadu? Hmm, I'll guess it's Jinang.
  13. OK Phil, I'll reveal the answer later in the programme.
  14. The sad truth is that it was no accident that the Aboriginal languages died out, given the cruel treatment of Aboriginal people.
  15. Children were removed from their mothers and sent to schools thousands of miles away to learn English, and even today Aboriginal communities experience racism and poverty.
  16. Another Aboriginal language, Bangala, officially died in 1960 when its last native speaker, Elder Mooney Davis, passed away.
  17. But Bangala has been brought back to life and today it's spoken between parents and children and even learned in school.
  18. So, how did a dead language with no living speakers come back to life?
  19. The unusual answer involves a dictionary and a professor of linguistics.
  20. Here's Professor Gilad Zuckerman telling his story for BBC World Service programme People Fixing the World.
  21. I had a dictionary written by a German Lutheran Christian missionary in 1844.
  22. His name was Klamor Wilhelm Schumann and he wrote the dictionary with... up to 3,500 words, which is a lot, because he wanted to Christianise the, in quotation marks, heathens.
  23. So it's a topsy-turvy writing the wrong of the past by using a tool written for one goal in order to achieve the diametrically opposite goal.
  24. Professor Zuckerman found an English to Bangala dictionary written in 1844 by a German missionary.
  25. a person sent to a foreign country to teach their religion to the people living there.
  26. Christian missionaries used the dictionary to teach English to what they called Aboriginal heathens.
  27. Heathen is an old-fashioned word for someone who belongs to no religion or to a religion that is not Christianity, Judaism or Islam.
  28. Professor Zuckerman puts the words heathen in quotation marks.
  29. The phrase in quotation marks... is used to show the actual words someone else has written or said. But here, the phrase is used ironically.
  30. Professor Zuckerman is questioning the real meaning of the word heathens.
  31. He is signalling that he doesn't think Aboriginals are heathens at all.
  32. A bit like adding a wink at the end of a sentence so people know you're not serious.
  33. What's ironic is that Professor Zuckerman used the Missionaries Dictionary not to spread Christianity and English – but to save an Aboriginal language from extinction.
  34. So he calls it topsy-turvy, meaning upside down.
  35. Professor Zuckerman also says he is writing the wrongs of the past, a phrase which means doing something to correct a historical injustice from the past,
  36. in this case the destruction of Aboriginal language and culture.
  37. Speaking your own language is about more than communication.
  38. It means knowing your roots and feeling good about yourself.
  39. I think it's time you reveal the answer to your question, Neil.
  40. OK. Well, Phil, you guessed that Jinang was another living Aboriginal language, which was the correct answer.
  41. Right, let's recap the vocabulary we've learned, starting with missionary – someone sent to spread their religion to a foreign country.
  42. Heathen is an old-fashioned name for someone who believes in no religion.
  43. The phrase in quotation marks is used to show the actual words spoken or written by someone else.
  44. It can also be used ironically to show scepticism, disagreement or belief that a word is misused.
  45. Topsy-turvy means upside down or disorganised. If you right the wrongs of the past, you try to correct a historical injustice.
  46. Once again, our six minutes are up. Goodbye for now. Bye.