How Can Language Empower or Oppress A Group of People?
Language is an important piece of society. Not only is our primary source of quick communication with others, it is also a cultural mark of who we are. Languages retain within them an identity, a culture, and a history. As some languages grow obsolete, a whole people's culture is put at risk of disappearing, as is the history and knowledge that lies within them. "The Linguists", a documentary filmed by two language specialists, is a video documentary that follows K. David Harrison and Gregory Anderson across the world to explore, examine, and preserve different regional languages that are growing weak or dying. Throughout this documentary, we follow the two as they encounter different people of varying regions. Each with their own remaining knowledge of their language and the last pieces of their knowledge held within its' dialect. They go to remote areas of places such as Siberia to learn more about Chulym.
In Siberia, with the help of a Siberian driver, they finally find someone who speaks Chulym, an almost forgotten language. After finally finding the first person with this form of speech, they struggle as she is a lady in her 90's whose hearing has decayed majorly. A theme seen a lot in "The Linguists" is that of time and change among others such as Identity culture, . As the years go by there is less and less need for certain languages; consequently, the children of the next generations become reluctant to learn this language and the amount of speakers dwindle. The linguist specialists struggle to find anyone younger in their search as these seniors are the only ones who have kept this language with them. Their identity is shown through their knowledge of Chulym. We learn that some are ashamed or very conservative towards their ability to speak Chulym as eventually, the fifty-something year old driver speaks up to the older lady. Thus surprising the specialists as he proceeds to speak fluent Chulym. Although, upon some questioning we learn that Chulym is a language of the outskirts, it is a distant language known as a language of the boonies. If you spoke it you may have been regarded as unintelligent or lower status; almost like AAVE in the United States. It has its ways pf restricting a society and it becomes oppression created by society and the relevance of a language.
On the other hand, it bonds people together. With such a little base of speakers, running into another speaker creates an instant connection. Nearing the end of the documentary, we see that the driver who the specialists call the "... youngest and most fluent speaker" becomes more and more familiar with them. We learn that though Chulym didn't have a written form, the driver had made his own using Russian letters; but sadly, he had thrown them away. They were thrown away due to the thought that they were offensive and inappropriate due to the reaction of Russian speakers. Against this blow to the Chulym language, the specialists gathered the village members and explained his story. Both those who understood Chulym and those who didn't gathered together, and the specialists proposed the concept of making a book around this story. It would be published as a community project as it was put together by this group. They were being empowered through the gift of a voice.
Through watching this documentary it its' entirety, the audience learns that people can be oppressed heavily by their languages. We are shown that as certain languages rise as more dominant, others seem as though they've lost their importance. However, we also learn that these smaller languages hold much more importance within them than one might think. Languages give people in a community strength and unity as well as information about their history. It is a large piece of the building blocks of culture; even giving the people of a group a unique sense of unity that people only speaking a more prominent language may not understand.
