Instalment Twelve

It is difficult to imagine words dying, but they do. They seem vibrant, living things but they are fragile entities. Words become brittle when falling out of the lexicon, aging without use, like a supple leather saddle cracking without due care over time.

If they are lucky they have been written down, saved in text, nether alive or dead but kept in state on the page. This is why books are referred to as tomes. They are monuments to the fallen.

Entire languages are dying without the providence of having been transcribed to paper. Spreading like a virus of the mind, bullying English is killing them. Of 6,900 languages spoken in the world today, 50% to 90% may die by century’s end.

The last person who spoke the Eyak language as her mother-tongue died this year. Imagine the solitude of Marie Smith, 89 of Alaska, in her last moments. Then imagine the words, centuries older than Marie, an entire language, trapped within her head. Knowing their fate, knowing even if they are her last words, their meaning will be lost on those around her.

Merely thinking a word breathes new life throughout its vowels, consonants and meaning. Save a word.

The 200 Word Stories Adopt-a-word Program

It is what it sounds like, so here are two words that could do with your attention.

The Eyak language has a word datas which means, “I am trembling” or “I am shaking (from drunkenness).” That’s a very useful word, which I can and will apply to my own life.

The Yupik Eskimos use the term kunlangeta to describe a man who repeatedly lies, cheats, steals, and takes sexual advantage of women. If you haven’t met someone to whom you want to apply that word to then you have never been to a bar.