During my time poddling about the internet at night, as I am kept awake by the sonorous snores of Prudence who insists on cuddling as close to Corinna and me as possible, I find some interesting things. One particularly interesting blog is Beachcombing, which has lots of obscure odds and sods of interest to the fortean zoologist....
Today’s post was inspired by a long ago reading of WaNW David Crystal’s Language death (CUP 2000). In this book – that Beachcombing no longer has to hand but enjoyed on the steps of Santiago’s cathedral – Crystal relates the story of Alexander von Humboldt’s parrots. While travelling in South America in 1800 von Humboldt stumbled upon a tribe with several pet parrots. These parrots were speaking though words of another language: the great German naturalist learnt that they had been taken from an exterminated people. Crystal sets this up as an eloquent image for language death – a handful of syllables guarded by creatures who cannot even understand the last words of the people that they are perpetuating.
Read on.../
No comments:
Post a Comment