Case: Preserving the Kallawaya language.

All Rise,

Court is now in session,

Please be seated and come to order.

Case: Preserving the Kallawaya language.

Point 1: Preserving the medicinal knowledge

Prediction ofOpposing Argument: English has medicinal knowledge

Rebuttal: Just because you have some acquired knowledge, does not mean it would be beneficial to let go of all the unknown knowledge systems out there.

Point 2: Ensuring the protection of cultural diversity in the world
Prediction of Opposing Argument: But the only cultures that are eradicated are the ones that are backwards

Rebuttal: Who gets to say which culture is wrong and which is right, something may be different but that does not mean it is wrong.

Point 3: Ensuring the protection of the Kallawayan identity

Opposing Point 1: Extrinsic benefits of English: meaning that it is well established, it has many speakers, it has wealth (of teaching materials, etc.)

Rebuttal: Yes multilingualism may be promoted, but no language should be sacrificed due to such promotion

Opposing point 2: Intrinsic benefits of Enlglish: may bestow wealth and financial success upon its speakers.

Rebuttal: Not everyone who learns the English language will gain financial success so why sacrifice a language and a community’s identity for something that may, but may not be possible?

Kallawaya - the dying tongue

Most Meaningful Takeaway

My unkempt thoughts are belligerently occupying my mind. Never have I ever looked at language and linguistics in such a perplex manner. David Malouf once said, even the simplest languages are composed of a complex system of silence and sound. Despite the renowned beliefs, the value of a language can never be accumulated through materialistic means. Thousands of generations of your ancestry live upon the tip of your tongue. When your tongue is alive, your culture and heritage becomes indefatigable, for your words act as a shield to all interlopers. One should take pride when they spit in their tongue. One should take pride in its lexis, its vowels and its ineffable patterns of silence and sound. There is only so much interlopers could do, often times it is your mind that betrays you. Your mind may try and kill your tongue; this is the story of two organs that have failed to live in coexistence.

If you do so much as to learn your language and cherish it, it will provide you with remuneration, an endless cornucopia of knowledge and wisdom. If you treat your language irreverently, you will wholly loose yourself. You will find yourself unable to fully equate with any other system of linguistics.

It is every individual’s moral duty to rigorously hold onto their mother tongue to honor their ancestors, despite the potential repercussions of colonialism and bilingualism. Leading previously acquired knowledge into demise has an exceedingly pernicious impact on human evolution.

What is the value of preserving indigenous languages?

The world we live in today once had multifarious languages; each indigenous language protected a community’s culture and traditions. However, as communication became ubiquitous the human race have developed a propensity towards the English language thus, placing their indigenous language and culture into a quagmire. Once people vilify their indigenous language, their pertinacious insistence to avoid practicing it and swapping it for another language causes the language to die.

How does this have a pernicious impact on society?

First and foremost, knowledge is the key to development in society. However, linguistic erosion has caused the loss of a great amount of orally passed indigenous knowledge that could never be retrieved once the language dies.

Not only does an indigenous language protect its people’s identity and dignity, but it also protects the laws of the land. Without these laws, individuals of a community would often find themselves struggling to survive in their environment.

Another point, which had been touched upon earlier, is that language death signifies the depletion of cultural diversity.

There is no single style of governance, nor a single lifestyle that is suitable to all human beings. Environmental factors greatly impact shaping the style of life and governance that is most suitable to the community. Thus, lack of cultural diversity could place many communities in a perilous state.

That is why the paucity of indigenous languages remaining is alarming and must be taken seriously in order to ensure human survival.