One language dies every 14 days. By the next century nearly half of the roughly 7,000 languages spoken on Earth will likely disappear, as communities abandon native tongues in favor of English, Mandarin, or Spanish. What is lost when a language goes silent?
“I speak it inside
Johnny Hill, Jr.
Johnny Hill, Jr., of Parker, Arizona, is one of the last speakers of Chemehuevi, an endangered Native American language: “It’s like a bird losing feathers. You see one float by, and there it goes—another word gone.”
“We are still here.”
— Maxine Wildcat Barnett (left)
and Josephine Wildcat Bigler
Maxine Wildcat Barnett (at left) and Josephine Wildcat Bigler say their grandmother always demanded that they speak their native language. “As long as you live in my house,” she said, “you speak Euchee!” Here the Wildcat sisters visit their grandmother’s grave in a cemetery behind Pickett Chapel, a Methodist church in Sapulpa, Oklahoma.
“I don’t want to see
this language die out.”
— K’asa Henry Washburn
K’asa Henry Washburn, 86, is one of only four fluent speakers of Euchee left. Every day he drives ten miles from his home in West Tulsa to the Euchee Language House, where children are learning their native tongue. As a result, Euchee students sometimes get in trouble again for speaking their ancestral language in school. Richard Grounds, director of the project, calls him a “living dictionary.”
“My mother’s mother
has been here before.”
— Melodie George-Moore
Melodie George-Moore was discouraged from speaking her tribal language while growing up. “Why learn Hupa? Everyone who speaks it is dead.” But she sensed her destiny was tied to learning the Hupa language, and so she has learned it well enough to fulfill her role as a medicine woman. Moore believes that answers to the troubles faced by her tribe may be found in the stories of her ancestors.
“The white language
doesn’t go deep enough.”
— Charlie “Red Hawk” Thom
Charlie “Red Hawk” Thom is a medicine man and ceremonial leader. He says that English goes in one ear and out the other: it never touches the heart. Karuk, he says, begins in the heart and moves to the mind. To say you love something, you say ick-ship-eee-mihni. “This is serious,” he says. “If you tell a woman eee-mihni then, well, you’d better be ready to marry her.”
has my heart.”
— Caleen Sisk
Caleen Sisk is the spiritual leader and the tribal chief of the Winnemem Wintu tribe—and a last speaker of the language that sustains her people’s identity. For a hundred years, the tribe has been fighting with the U.S. government over its territory along the McCloud River, abutting Mount Shasta, which they consider their birthplace. Loss of land and loss of language are connected, says Sisk. “This land is our church.”
“It’d be nice if we could
all sit down and talk
— Ramona Dick
Ramona Dick refused to be sent off as a child to the Stewart Indian School near Carson City, where students were required to speak only English.
— Herman Holbrook
Herman Holbrook struggled to hold onto his Washoe words until his death in September of last year. As he wandered in the Pine Nut Mountains, where his ancestors had walked for thousands of years, Holbrook explained what the place meant to him: Dik’ Ma:sh di ma:sh, or my pine nut lands, my face.
Number of speakers
[ songgaar ]
[ burungaar ]
go back | the future
go forward | the past
Tuvans believe the past is ahead of them while the future lies behind. The children who flock to this bungee-cord ride outside the National Museum of Tuva look to the future, but it’s behind them, not yet seen.
[ ezenggileer ]
to stirrup | to sing with the rhythms of a riding horse
The words used to describe styles of throat singing—an art among Tuvan herders—perfectly capture their distinctive sounds. Ezenggileer evokes the pulsing rhythms of galloping on a horse.
[ khei-àt ]
air horse | a spiritual place within
Ai-Xaan Oorzhak throat sings and plays the igil, or horse-head fiddle, with bow techniques like “make horse walk.” Singers use the term “air horse” to describe the spiritual depths they draw from to produce the harmonic sounds.
[ khoj özeeri ]
ritual sheep slaughter
The Tuvans slaughter sheep by making a slit in the animal’s chest, inserting a hand, and severing the main artery that leads to the heart. The term khoj özeeri conveys both the humane attitude of this method of slaughter as well as the skill that ensures that
no blood is spilled.
[ čyttaar ]
to kiss | to sniff
Orlan Sat tenderly sniffs his son Sayan, a Tuvan sign of affection akin to a kiss. He’s already begun teaching Sayan how to herd the family’s 600 animals by riding with him out on the range in Tuva.
[ anayim ]
my little goat
Aidyng Kyrgys caresses his newborn baby girl, whom he refers to using this tender term of endearment. The arrival of an infant is cause for a celebration and feasting for the whole family at their tiny log house.
[ ak byzaa ]
white calf, less than one year
Raising sheep, yaks, and goats on the Siberian steppe is so central to Tuvan life that the vocabulary for livestock is embedded with detailed information about each animal’s age, gender, fertility, coloration.
[ oktaar ]
to throw or take down
A Tuvan wrestling match is decided when the first man is thrown down—when any part of his body other than the soles of his feet touches the ground. Valeriy Ondar and Sholban Mongush warm up in traditional costumes at a celebration in Kyzyl featuring more than 250 wrestlers competing for cars, refrigerators, and a stove. Competitors can be locked in positions for hours, testing each other’s points of power and weakness.
[ artyštaar ]
to burn juniper | to purify
A Tuvan shaman cleanses the house of a deceased relative’s spirit using smoke from burning juniper to chase away darkness. The incense fills the room as the family ask the spirits of hearth and home to protect them.
Number of speakers
[ tradzy ]
a necklace of yellow stone beads
The Aka have more than 26 words to describe beads. Beyond being objects of adornment, beads are status symbols and currency. This toddler will get this necklace at her wedding.
[ shobotro vyew ]
to calculate bride price using twigs
The price for an Aka marriage is negotiated with bamboo sticks. The groom’s side lays down a number representing money and gifts, and the bride’s family counteroffers. Families can haggle for months using the same sticks.
[ chofe gidego ]
is looking at liver
A marriage is not recognized until after the ritual slaughter of a mithan, a type of cattle, when its liver can be read. The verdict: A small spot might signal an accident in the couple’s future but otherwise a happy life.
[ nichleu-nuggo ]
wise, compassionate, tolerant
Govardhan Nimasow is a rich man who married eight wives, fathered 26 children, and owns one of the few concrete houses in his village. But his status as a nichleu-nuggo also means he possesses humility and wisdom.
[ mope ay ]
Hunting is now restricted and most of the big game killed off, but a mystique still surrounds the weapons of Aka hunters in Palizi. Mope ay refers to the plant used to poison arrow tips.
[ labber oogo ]
rubber to shoot
Eight-year-old Vishal Ramdasow’s slingshot is much less deadly than the poisoned arrows his ancestors used to kill tigers. The word labber is borrowed from the English “rubber.”
[ ayay ]
[ chulai ]
mother chicken or hen
Giamum Yame stands with her two-year-old son in the doorway of their home an hour away from Palizi. A henhouse basket is nailed to the wall.
Number of speakers
[ ziix quih haasax
áno cöcacaaixaj ]
one who strongly greets
There is no greeting among the Seris akin to a handshake or wave. But Josué Robles Barnett demonstrates a gesture that used to be performed when arriving in a strange community to convey you meant no harm.
[ iquiisax hipi hacx caap ]
spirit that exists alone
The Seris used to believe that when air spun into a whirlwind in the desert, it was the spirit of a dead person. Now most Seris are Christians and have moved away from a literal belief that ghosts are among them. In this El Desemboque cemetery Marcela Díaz Félix uses a scarf for shade as she visits her father’s grave.
[ Miixöni quih zó hant ano tiij? ]
Where is your placenta buried?
This is how the Seris ask, Where are you from? Those who were born before hospital births know the exact spot where their afterbirth was placed in the ground, covered in sand and ash, and topped with rocks.
[ hant iiha cöhacomxoj ]
ones who have been told the ancient things
She’s blind and nearly deaf, but Isabel Chavela Torres still passes on traditional knowledge. The Seri names for species in the Sonoran Desert and Gulf of California reveal behaviors scientists have only recently begun to discover.
[ hepem cöicooit ]
one who dances like
the white-tailed deer
Chavela’s grandson Jorge Luis Montaño Herrera shakes gourd rattles and assumes the identity of a deer. Just as his grandmother once sang him traditional melodies, he now wants to teach the deer dance to Seri children.
[ atcz | azaac ]
daughter of a parent’s younger sibling
daughter of a parent’s older sibling
The Seris have more than 50 terms for kinship relationships, such as between these two cousins, many specific to the gender and birth order of the relative. A woman uses a different word for father than a man does.
[ xeescl ]
Knowledge of the plants of the Sonoran Desert, in Seri the “place of the plants,” has long been essential to Seri survival.
[ heeno cmaam ]
woman from place of the plants
Herbalists like Juanita Herrera Casanova are greatly esteemed in the Seri community for their knowledge of herbal medicine and traditional ceremonies. Herrera searches out desert lavender, desert mistletoe, and desert senna and carries the bounty home on her head.
[ caahit ]
to cause the fish to eat
When Seri fishermen like Juan Barnett Díaz catch a fish in the Gulf of California, they say they “encouraged the fish to eat”—a respectful, fish-centric way of describing their dependence on the sea’s bounty. Generations ago, Seris who worked along the shores of the gulf returned with abundant varieties of fish and sea turtles. Today competition from commercial boats means they must settle for puffer fish and skates.
[ ziix hacx tiij catax ]
thing that moves on its own
As modern inventions like cars enter their world, the Seris tend to adapt their language rather than import Spanish words. Erica Barnett uses an abandoned car as a hothouse to grow mangroves to replenish an estuary.
[ caasipl ]
the one who makes marks
Other Seris can’t understand why Lorenzo Herrera Casanova has chosen to be a writer, or “one who makes marks,” because it doesn’t earn him anything. But since linguists came to help the Seris create their first dictionary, he’s become obsessed with documenting everything his grandfather told him as a boy.
[ hihipon ]
Punta Chueca teenager Deborah Anabel Herrera Moreno has a rebellious streak. She’s trying to find her own voice by learning to write the Seri language, called Cmiique Iitom. Although she dropped out of school, she’s teaching herself to read and write in hopes of becoming a teacher someday.