Thursday, February 9, 2012

Endangered cultures, the truth or the myth

Since the beginning of the times, society have always tried to find the way to overcome themselves in all the aspects, financially, technologies, health care issues and more; but after all this years that had passed by and all the advances we had made there's an ugly part in all this pretty good things happening. One of the biggest issues that society in their need of progress has left behind is about cultures, every day while the "normal" people that lives in the city are being fascinated with some new thing in the other part of the world there's an endangered culture hiding in the jungle or mountains and by saying endangered i mean the pain and the effect that we're probably causing to an extraordinary, fascinating and mystic little society.

In this matter, the word endangered have a lot of content because we're not just talking about their security as human beings but the dangered caused to their culture and their traditions.
As Tom Colls says in his article "the death of language" there's an estimated 7000 languages spoken all over the world but he also points that this number is getting lower and lower everytime and i get his point because why would someone to learn their native language if they also have to learn another worldwide spoken language in order to communicate with the whole world? would it be really worth it? and i think its not a problem inside the endangered cultures i think the problem is on the society in general, or wouldn't you just overlook someone if they're on the streets talking to everybody in an strange idiom, you'd probably think that that person need to learn your language asap but you would probably never be open to the possibility of you learning theirs. 

In 1992 a US prominent linguist said that by 2100, 90% of this 7000 languages won't be spoken in the world anymore and theres a huge possibility for that to happen, for us "the normal society people" this could not have a value of but have you ever though about this other cultures? wouldn't just be boring the world if all of us were exactly the same, act the same way, dress the same, eat the same? 
In my opinion is really REALLY important to protect this different cultures, they are our begging our ancestors, they are part of this magical world were we just got out from, we owe them what we are today or isn't it english a mix of different native languages and so do the other idioms in the world? i think we should be more aware of this issue and don't let all this heritage and traditions fade away just because of globalization, we can advance without losing our beginnings there's no need to eliminate them for our lives and even worst we don't need and we shouldn't be allow to eliminate all this culture points from others lifes.

On the other hand, while talking about traditions and heritage i don't just mean language I'm talking about every single aspect surrounding this endangered societies, the UNESCO has identify some endangered cultures as mariachis from mexico, poetic duelling from cyprus and chinese shadow puppetry, this traditions that had travel in time and had being alive for so long could just be death anytime and i think the main reason why this could happen is because of the lack of interest we as the majority of the society have on this kind of cultures, we just don't care enough about it.

To sum up, i think its very important to protect this different cultures not just because they deserve it and have the right to stay alive but because they're what we all come from they are our ancestors our living past, this cultures bring to society traditions, stories, history and a quick look of where we were first, of where we started, they also give us different additions to our culture as music, food, dress, religion, thoughts and the majority of this endangered cultures try to clean up the mess we've been made to our environment, they take care of the nature because they live from it. I think is vital to keep the cultural diversity because we all have the right to do what we're been conditioned and taught to do, if we are changed from what we used to be to have society wants you to theres always going to be a pain inside your soul, it wasn't really nice at all to be taken out of your comfort zone and as i said before wouldn't just be a boring world if we all were the same? let's just let everybody do what they believe in.

xoxo, Olga

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