Back to Reviews By Title - S

Spoken Here, Mark Abley
Arrow
Reviewed by John Whelan (Courtesy of Taranaki Daily News)

Mark Abley embarked on a worldwide search for languages in trouble, those that for one reason or another are facing extinction. The result is a well-researched book with a human side to it but whose overall tone is pessimistic.

It is part travel book part linguistic investigation. His journeys take him to outback Australia where there used to be hundreds of Aboriginal languages – complete languages, not dialects – which evolved in separate communities over thousands of years. He travels to the Isle of Man where Manx is spoken by ever-decreasing numbers. To Provence where nationalism is intertwined with the language. He visits Native American tribes where small pockets of languages such as Cree, Mohawk and Inuit exist only inside the reservations.

In comparison to the dire straits of most of the world's minority languages, Welsh is held up as an example of what can be achieved given resources and commitment. This, in a country whose neighbour is home to the very language that has contributed to the demise of so many others. A strong national identity, legislation, access to the media and school-based programmes are all factors needed to grow a language.

Abley almost made me feel guilty for having English as a native tongue. Anyone reading Spoken Here will be struck by how incredibly global the use of English is. There is no indication this domination will slow down but he quite rightly points out that being widely spoken doesn't make it better or more intelligible than others. He notes the demise of smaller languages is not a new phenomenon but the speed of change, attributed to Westernisation and new ways of communicating, has hastened the decline. I felt at times the author struggled with the fact that the genie is already out of the bottle and there is simply no going back.

Maori gets a brief mention, along with Afrikaans and some Romany languages, being described as a "new" language and with only a fleeting reference to its revival.

There are many sad tales and statistics. The personal stories from native speakers struggling to pass on to future generations their link with the past is a familiar theme. "Losing any language is like dropping a bomb on the Louvre."

The writing is very impassioned, offering awareness but few solutions. The time spent among young Mohawk students learning a language "...they feel is rightfully theirs – a language, like a phantom limb, whose absence hurts" was particularly sad.