{"id":3500345,"date":"2024-03-29T10:28:05","date_gmt":"2024-03-29T10:28:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.resilience.org\/?p=3500345"},"modified":"2024-03-29T10:28:05","modified_gmt":"2024-03-29T10:28:05","slug":"why-language-is-central-to-the-survival-of-cultures-and-communities","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.resilience.org\/stories\/2024-03-29\/why-language-is-central-to-the-survival-of-cultures-and-communities\/","title":{"rendered":"Why language is central to the survival of cultures and communities"},"content":{"rendered":"<ul>\n<li><em>More than half the world\u2019s languages could go extinct by 2100, The United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues says.<\/em><\/li>\n<li><em>Roughly 4,000 of the world\u2019s 6,700 languages are spoken by Indigenous communities and contain knowledge key for conservation and human health, but multiple factors threaten their existence along with their speakers\u2019 cultures.<\/em><\/li>\n<li><em>Joining the podcast is Jay Griffiths, author of \u2018Wild\u2019 and other seminal books about how language and relationship are central to cultural survival, and why connection to the land is a universal human right.<\/em><\/li>\n<li><em>The guest also draws parallels between humans, nature and culture: \u201cThere\u2019s great research that suggests that we learned ethics from wolves [of taking] an attitude to the world of both me the individual, and of me the pack member,\u201d she says.<\/em><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Deep cultural connection to land and nature are inherent to the human experience and a birthright, says\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/jaygriffiths.com\/about\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"external noopener\" data-wpel-link=\"external\">Jay Griffiths<\/a>, author of\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/jaygriffiths.com\/books\/wild\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"external noopener\" data-wpel-link=\"external\"><em>WILD: An Elemental Journey<\/em><\/a>\u00a0(2006). But what happens when communities become displaced, either voluntarily or through force?<\/p>\n<p>The Sydney-based Institute for Economics &amp; Peace\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov\/pmc\/articles\/PMC10037158\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"external noopener\" data-wpel-link=\"external\">estimates<\/a>\u00a0that there could be 1.2 billion climate refugees by the year 2050. How do cultures and their people survive amid increasing climate disruption or the violation of their\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/news.mongabay.com\/list\/human-rights\/\" data-wpel-link=\"internal\">human rights<\/a>?<\/p>\n<p>A culture \u201ccarries itself through language, and also that\u2019s how it makes the land, a spoken place, is through the language,\u201d Griffiths says on this episode of Mongabay\u2019s Newscast. She also draws parallels between humans, nature and culture: \u201cThere\u2019s great research that suggests that we learned ethics from wolves [of taking] an attitude to the world of both me the individual and of me the pack member,\u201d in caring for all members of the group.<\/p>\n<p>Griffiths joins the Mongabay Newscast to talk with co-host Rachel Donald about narratives surrounding\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/news.mongabay.com\/list\/indigenous-cultures\/\" data-wpel-link=\"internal\">Indigenous cultures<\/a>, animal culture, and more.<\/p>\n<p>Listen here:<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" class=\"iframe-class\" title=\"Embed Player\" src=\"https:\/\/play.libsyn.com\/embed\/episode\/id\/30347118\/height\/128\/theme\/modern\/size\/standard\/thumbnail\/yes\/custom-color\/14364f\/time-start\/00:00:00\/hide-playlist\/yes\/download\/yes\/font-color\/FFFFFF\" width=\"100%\" height=\"128\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\" data-mce-fragment=\"1\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>The United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.un.org\/development\/desa\/indigenouspeoples\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/19\/2018\/04\/Indigenous-Languages.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"external noopener\" data-wpel-link=\"external\">estimates<\/a>\u00a0that by 2100 more than half of all the 6,700 languages spoken today could become extinct. Currently, more than 4,000 of these languages are spoken by less than 6% of the global population, who happen to be Indigenous.<\/p>\n<p>This has implications for conservation and human health, too: a recent study\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/news.mongabay.com\/2021\/09\/extinction-of-indigenous-languages-leads-to-loss-of-exclusive-knowledge-about-medicinal-plants\/\" data-wpel-link=\"internal\">revealed<\/a>\u00a0that a large proportion of existing medicinal plant knowledge is linked to threatened Indigenous languages, and in the Amazon, New Guinea and North America, researchers concluded that 75% of medicinal plant uses are known in only one language.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-278355 aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/imgs.mongabay.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/20\/2024\/01\/31195016\/raja-ampat_240514-768x512.jpg\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 768px) 100vw, 768px\" srcset=\"https:\/\/imgs.mongabay.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/20\/2024\/01\/31195016\/raja-ampat_240514-768x512.jpg 768w, https:\/\/imgs.mongabay.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/20\/2024\/01\/31195016\/raja-ampat_240514-1200x800.jpg 1200w, https:\/\/imgs.mongabay.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/20\/2024\/01\/31195016\/raja-ampat_240514-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/imgs.mongabay.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/20\/2024\/01\/31195016\/raja-ampat_240514-2048x1365.jpg 2048w, https:\/\/imgs.mongabay.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/20\/2024\/01\/31195016\/raja-ampat_240514-610x407.jpg 610w\" alt=\"Kali Biru (Blue River) on Waigeo island in Raja Ampat, West Papua, Indonesia. Photo credit: Rhett Ayers Butler.\" width=\"768\" height=\"512\" \/><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><em>Kali Biru (Blue River) on Waigeo island in Raja Ampat, West Papua, Indonesia. Photo credit: Rhett Ayers Butler.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Deep cultural connection to land and nature are inherent to the human experience and a birthright, says\u00a0Jay Griffiths, author of\u00a0WILD: An Elemental Journey\u00a0(2006). But what happens when communities become displaced, either voluntarily or through force?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":128238,"featured_media":3500404,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[79718,79720,213535],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3500345","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-environment","category-society","category-society-featured"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.resilience.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3500345","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.resilience.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.resilience.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.resilience.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/128238"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.resilience.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3500345"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.resilience.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3500345\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.resilience.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3500404"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.resilience.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3500345"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.resilience.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3500345"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.resilience.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3500345"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}