Linguistic Imperialism: The Value of Preserving Indigenous Language

Language is the ultimate form of communication. It is also very diverse and complex, joining different meanings to a person's lifestyle. As certain languages grow stronger, their influence spreads to others. This spreading of language can result in the slow assimilation of language and culture. This can put weaker, less known languages at risk.
An aboriginal language is a language existing in an area before any imperialism, a language used by the aboriginal people indigenous to that region. These languages often have a history behind them. Aboriginal languages with rich vocabularies to describe the natural world especially, have knowledge about a society's history and culture within their dialect. In a passage in "Speaking in Tongues" the writer states: "The evocative imagery they contain expresses how closely the aboriginal clans are linked with the land." This link the people have with their land is progressively lost as time moves on. The language slowly becomes more and more irrelevant to them, as this happens, the language loses its value. With the loss of this value, a piece of history and knowledge disappears.
When a language runs out of speakers, the knowledge stored within it slowly disappears as less people live to understand and regurgitate it. Consider a record of herbs and agriculture around a remote area is kept in the corresponding language, as less people are able to understand the record, this information becomes both priceless, and worthless. Soon, the language dies out, and now this information, no matter how useful and important it could be, has lost it's value, along with the language. Without people who can teach and keep these languages, we lose the potential to learn more. According to the article, Nicholas Evans, a linguist specialist and head of linguistics at Melbourne University gives credit to these less known aboriginal tongues for advances in science.
Another reason the preservation of indigenous is so important is your identity. A piece of your heritage lies within your mother tongue, and that heritage is a big piece of who you are. With dominant languages like English taking over, fewer people have the need for an unpopular language. Consequently, the next generations of speakers are losing interest in their mother tongue, diverting to a more dominating language instead. Opposite to what most would believe, it's much more valuable to keep the languages alive. The world can learn from languages just as they can learn from teachers. That is why these dying, endangered languages are so valuable to save and keep alive.