The underground store rooms of the Forbidden City in Beijing housed the documents of the Manchuria dynasty which ruled China for more than three centuries.
The dilemma arose when the Manchurian empire was defeated.
Now, no one in China can read the Manchurian language. What was written in the official letters during that period of time was silenced.
Sinjoro Eng continues discussing the future of the languages in Part 2 of this series.
How long was the Manchurian empire in power before its rule in China ended? Was it a hundred years or less?
I watched a documentary while I was in China which revealed that the government sent people deep into the rural areas in northern China to look for any Manchurians who are left and can still read their ancestral language.
300 years of treasures just lay there, frozen, when the Emperor ordered the Manchurians to bury their identity to protect them from being murdered by the Han people.
A sample of Mongolian script. | Source: Image provided by author.
How do languages die ?
When a language is dead, who is on the losing side?
This is something many don’t contemplate. The worst part of it is that the linguists do not even mention a word of Esperanto in their books. They shed tears for history and they do not find a way to slow down the death of these languages or even try to stop it.
I would like to ask these linguists: what is the purpose of storing these languages in digital format and displaying them in museums?
Listen to this short audio clip from BBC and ask yourself the same question.
In 1992 a prominent US linguist stunned the academic world by predicting that by the year 2100, 90% of the world’s languages would have ceased to exist.
What will happen when languages die? This is what Dr K David Harrison has to say:
On the other hand, let us listen to Dr Nicholas Ostler talk about why we should protect endangered languages:
After watching the 8 minutes short film of the late Dr Claude Piron on the chanllenge of language, Sinjoro ENG has himself revolutionised. Watch it and see whether the short film will touch you too. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_YHALnLV9XU
Posted on 8 June 2013. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0.
Read more articles posted by Sinjoro ENG Chui-Lai.
Read this first: LB Terms of Use
3 Responses to The Soul Dies When Language Is Buried — Part 2