The Pursuit of the Preservation of Linguistic Diversity

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Language, the tool by which humans communicate with each other, can be very diverse and is absolutely essential in documenting what it truly means to be a member of any ethnic, political or social group existing in the world today. However, it also follows that with the destruction or decline of a group, so too does the language dwindle in speakers and die. There are many factors responsible for this, such as local attitude shifts towards the language in question, ethnic subjugation/strife, social motivations to push the language to be come moribund; but although it is troubling that with the language death, the “intellectual wealth of the people who use it” (Hale, 1992) is lost as well, it is important to note that this is a natural social occurrence, and is not inherently a disaster every time it happens.

Regardless, the pursuit of the preservation of linguistic diversity is not by any stretch of the imagination a bad idea, as it helps restore not only a dying language, but fortifies communities based on the identity associated with their native language. According to Colette...

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