Eyak Language

Eyak Language
Please Listen to the NPR stories entitled: Eyak Language & The Sound of Vanishing Languages. How far should we go to preserve a dying language? In your answer, please consider the following questions:
a) What are the arguments on both sides of the debate in promoting a single language?
The benefits of having a single language would be easier communication between businesses/companies, tourists and locals, and leaders and diplomats, which would probably produce more international unity because nations could understand each other better and there would be less of a cultural barrier; at least everyone would have the language in common. A single language would also save time and money not having to hire translators and announce public announcements in several languages, and paper and ink would be saved not having to print labels and instruction manuals in multiple languages. Second Language programs in school would not be necessary, and taxpayers would have less teachers' salaries to pay.
The problems with achieving a single world-wide spoken language would be finding enough teachers, money, and enforcement to teach 6 billion people a language. It would require sooo many English teachers, who could also speak the language of their students (since immersion doesn't really work and some words can only be understood by knowing the connection to the word the learner IS familiar with), and that would cost a lot of money. We would also need some sort of enforcement, since many people would be attached to their languages, would not want to learn ours, and would feel that they were being forced to give up part of their identity as a nation, a people, and as a person. The negative effects of a single language would be less linguistic and intellectual diversity and creativity, and a loss of perspective and information about how different nationalities of humans view the world (through studying different languages and their structures, etc.). Also, translators would be out of a job, and military operations would have less options for coding messages; they couldn't simply use another language that the enemies would have a hard time getting their hands on (but, as someone pointed out in class, nowadays they could just develop their own computer language).

b) How far should we go to save a dying language? What are the financial and cultural implications?
While I think saving a dying language is useful for learning more about that culture, I think that it is too much work for too little outcome. It would have good cultural implications if we saved it, because it would be saving a huge part of many cultures and "identities", but is that really necessary? There are obviously not too many people speaking a language if it is dying, so I don't think too many people would be affected or upset if it were allowed to die, and the money and time it would take to record the whole language and put it in taught classes or something to keep it alive just would not be worth it... There are hundreds of languages dying all the time, and trying to keep them all alive would have huge negative financial implications, spending all that money on old languages when it could be used to save dying PEOPLE. So I think we should just have people who are interested in "saving" a dying language do some research and do a basic recording of the language, and if there are any really useful or untranslatable words in their language, we could maybe add them to English and just expand the one world-wide language.

c) After reading: “Every Teacher is a Language Teacher,” what do think of the I.B. supporting International Mother Language Day?
Since changing the world to a single-language world is obviously not happening right now, and the kids at this school (and other schools all over the world) still have and speak their own languages, I think it's good that the school does recognize and celebrate that fact. As the article says, knowing 2 languages and cultures helps people compare the 2, make distinctions between the 2, and appreciate each more. I think it's good that these children stay connected with their families and heritages, and that each can share their language with other students so that they can all learn from each other. Mother Language Day celebrates diversity and different perspectives, styles, and cultures, and I think that is important in the IB curriculum, since it is an INTERNATIONAL program, and it tries to promote different perspectives and historiography, etc.