The UNESCO Interactive Atlas of the World’s Languages in Danger provides a list of nearly 2,500 dead or dying languages. Support for dying languages is often controversial in situations of scarce resource where the preservation of a language might mean the extinction of a people, but often when a language dies, a wealth of cultural knowledge, alternative perspectives and information about the natural world die with it. I cannot possibly give room to a discussion of all of the dying languages and the myriad political reasons for their demise, but I thought it might be interesting to highlight 26 of them – one for each letter of the alphabet, as a way of indirectly considering what is being lost, where it is being lost and why it might be worth preserving. The choice of languages will not be particularly systematic, but more a case of randomly selecting from those I can find information on, those we never hear about but which are linked to national cultures which are quite familiar and those which are so remote from general awareness as to be interesting just for that very reason. It is in this spirit of bringing to consciousness and perhaps prompting further exploration – rather than attempting a comprehensive overview and detailed history – that this “Alphabet of Dying Languages” begins with a look at the Ainu language of Japan, also spoken in parts of Russia.
Suzuko Tamura is a leading expert on this language and published her book ‘The Ainu Language’ in 1988 with an English translation produced in 2000.
The Ainu are indigenous to Japan, but have often had a rocky relationship with the Japanese, who took over influence in Southern Hokkaido, resulting in battles in 1457, 1669 and 1789 which the Ainu lost. This video provides some interesting old footage and facts about the Ainu peoples, accompanied by traditional Ainu music and singing. The website of the Ainu Museum also gives a well-structured overview of Ainu history and culture, including eating habits, agriculture, language and literature among other things.
Within Japanese culture, the Ainu traditions have at times been subject to what Richard Siddle (1996) describes as ‘the master narrative of seamless national homogeneity that dominates Japan’s discursive space’. This underplaying of difference has persisted in negative attitudes towards the Ainu and in the Ainu’s consequent own sense of shame about their Ainu heritage and use of the language. The sense of being ‘alien’ is heightened by differences in appearance from other Japanese, such as more prominent cheekbones and beard growth. In recent times some have attempted to rectify this victimization by the self/the other and to celebrate Ainu culture instead. The band “the Ainu Rebels” tries to reinvigorate Ainu tradition by blending old-style songs with rap, hip hop and rock. I find it quite fascinating that aspects of American culture functioning as ‘global’ can act as a crutch for a minority group in another part of the world to stand up for itself faced with dominance by a local national culture. Is it a redefinition of the culture, a true bringing up-to-date or is the culture simply being shackled to another hegemony?
Given ambiguous feelings towards Ainu culture, the language is also threatened with demise, with numbers of native speakers in the double digits. In line with attempts to revive the culture, second-language speakers are, however, on the rise. The culture has no alphabet of its own, but makes use either of Japanese Katakana or a Latin-based alphabet. It was originally an oral culture with stories passed on word-of-mouth from generation to generation, including “Yukar” or tales of heroes, “Yaysama” which women perform as impromptu songs of their emotions and “Upopo” which is a festival song.
Traditional Ainu Music Demonstration
Ainu means ‘human’ and the Ainu believe that there is a god for everything which is not human e.g. a god of fire, a god of windows, a lake god, a river god etc. This designation of themselves as ‘humans’ is one common to many peoples around the globe, who contrast themselves with what is ‘other’ or not-human. This ‘othering’ can include other human beings, perceived as unworthy of respect. An often cited example is the term ‘barbarian’ meaning primitive or uncivilized. This term derives from Latin via the Greek word barbarous meaning non-Greek, originally an onomatopoeic rendering of babble. The Sanskrit word barbara means stammering or non-Aryan.
This brief introduction to the Ainu situation is not specifically a plädoyer for Ainu culture, nor necessarily a patronising plea for everyone to be ‘nice’ to each other, but it highlights how easy it is to unjustly define a model of human existence according to our own image, whether Ainu or Japanese. The Japanese have been fortunate in having the political and material resources, as well as the population, to present their image more strongly and to make the Ainu feel ashamed of their own humanity.
