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LANGUAGE ECOLOGY
A Project Exploring World Languages In Danger of Disappearing
SYNOPSIS
“Soon I will go berry picking (an euphemism for dying). When I go, I will take our language with me.” Aunt Marta, one of the last speakers of the Tofa language of Siberia.*
The last two hundred years has seen the demise of many languages, and specialists predict that half of the approximately 6,900 languages spoken in the world today will disappear within this century. At this rate, we stand to lose a language about every 10 days. Why is this happening? Does this matter? By exploring different factors affecting language shift and loss, or what is termed ‘language ecology’, the project highlights the urgency of safeguarding endangered languages, and seeks to commemorate them before they vanish forever.
*K. David Harrison (2007), When Languages Die
Population: One (2-1)
Video
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This video is one of the two works in progress presented by Jane Liu during the MA show. In the 12-minute film, she documented the names of the 53 languages that have only one speaker alive today. In this work the sunlight is captured as a source of warmth to keep the languages visible and alive (breathing). Dependent on the London weather, these languages vanish as instantly as movement in the sky.
In the video the language names appear in order from east to west according to their location on earth, whereas Liu’s installation outside the triangle space (Population: One 2-1) presents the names of endangered languages from north to south.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u54o3SWmM5w
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Population: One (2-2)
Soil
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This installation is one of the two works in progress presented by Liu during the MA show. Her project investigates the decline of world languages today.
The text on the ground represents the names of the 53 languages that have only one speaker alive today (the order is from north to south according to their location on earth). The use of soil implies an ecological perspective, whereas with the wind and the viewers, the work will constantly change: the names will eventually disappear over time. Documented for posterity, this is a commemoration of the phenomenon of dying languages.
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After the exhibition, the editor of EP magazine contacted me and invites me to write an article about my ideas about disappearing languages. It is a new magazine about culture & literature, and is in the process of looking for contributors. I am quite excited and think it is a good opportunity to bring this project to the real world.
