There are 25 languages spoken by less than 1,000 people in my country, and some are close to disappearing
Rescue endangered languages, a race against time
The disappearing wild Baiji, the critically endangered Siberian tiger, the rare and endangered plant Qinling redwood... In recent years of popular science, people have gradually realized the urgency of protecting endangered animals and plants, but for most people, "endangered languages" "It's still an unfamiliar concept.
Let's take a look at a set of facts: Geman has a population of 13 people, and only 6 people are more fluent in Duosu; Songlin language songs have all died out; Myths and legends are disappearing...
"A language will die out in about two weeks on average" - the survey data from UNESCO is shocking: there are about 6,700 languages in the world, and about 40% of them are on the verge of extinction.
According to the records of the "Chronicles of Endangered Languages in China" (hereinafter referred to as "Chronicles of Endangered Languages") published by the Commercial Press, among the more than 130 languages in my country, 68 are spoken by a population of less than 10,000 people, and 48 are spoken by a population of less than 5,000. , there are 25 languages spoken by less than 1,000 people, and some languages are only spoken by a dozen or even a few people, and are on the verge of extinction.
Over time, this problem has become more serious.
Since the 1990s, Chinese scholars have begun to take action. They have walked into the Himalayas, walked to the Heilongjiang River under the Changbai Mountains, and walked into the vast Hainan jungle... They launched a race against time and rescued a batch of precious languages. resource.
"We are racing against time," said Cao Zhiyun, editor-in-chief of Endangered Chronicles, advisory member of the State Language Commission, and chief expert of the China Language Resources Protection Project.
The disappearing Mu Laoyu looks lost to time
The story of endangered languages always begins with regret.
Wang Lining, editorial board member of the second edition of "Endangered Chronicles" and a researcher at the Chinese Language Resources Conservation Research Center of Beijing Language and Culture University, opened a book "Language of China" published in 2007. It was held in August 2000 at Ba Mao Village, Fuxing Village, Longshan Township, Majiang County. The pronunciation partner was Wen Guoying, female, at the age of 87. She was the only old man who could speak Mu Lao at that time.' In 2015 In 2010, we mobilized forces from all walks of life, and after searching for several years, we have not found her again."
"This matter has always been a pity in my heart. We watched ourselves lose to time." Wang Lining said that because he could not find a native speaker of Mu Lao language, he had to give up the investigation work, and the language was probably dead .
Around the world, there are many Mula-like languages that have or are disappearing.
At the beginning of the 21st century, UNESCO released the "Global Distribution Map of Endangered Languages", which for the first time used the form of "language map" to intuitively show people the status of endangered languages in some parts of the world.
The map lists the names, endangerment levels and regions of use of 2,474 languages, 230 of which have been on the brink of disappearance since 1950.
A total of 196 languages are endangered in India, which is the country with the most endangered languages. The second and third countries are the United States and Indonesia, respectively, with 192 and 147 endangered languages.
my country is a multi-ethnic, multi-language, multi-dialect, and multi-language country. It has more than 130 languages in five major language families: Sino-Tibetan, Altai, Austronesian, South Asian and Indo-European, and 10 major Chinese dialects. It is the most language resource in the world today. one of the richest countries.
On the UN's "Map of Endangered Languages", our country is in slightly better shape.
However, with the rapid progress of globalization and modernization, some languages, dialects and regional cultures are facing unprecedented challenges.
Let us hear the voices in ancient books, let future generations hear our voices
"What's the point of what you're doing?" "These languages are too far away from us!"—this is the "soul torture" that language guarantors often encounter.
In fact, dialects and their influence are all around us.
Wang Lining gave a very popular example: Tea in English was introduced from Hokkien in Chinese.
Today, Xiamen dialect and Quanzhou dialect still refer to tea as "stack" (sound). In ancient times, this pronunciation traveled all over the world along the Maritime Silk Road.
Currently, tea is called Tea or Thé in more than 80 languages in the world.
Wang Lining said that this pronunciation is not far from our lives. Shacha sauce is also called satay sauce. This "嗲" is the pronunciation of tea in Chaoshan dialect.
Endangered languages are also not exclusive "species" in remote areas, they are all around us.
The forthcoming second volume of "Endangered Chronicles" includes Zhanmi, a Chinese dialect in the Shenzhen area.
According to the investigation by Associate Professor Wu Fang of Shenzhen University, Zhanmi is mainly distributed in the villages of Shenzhen Shenshan Cooperation Zone and some towns and towns in Huizhou. Some villages also have this dialect, but there are only a dozen local people who can speak this dialect.
Wu Fang said that the Zhanmi language has witnessed a period of migration history in the late Ming Dynasty. "According to some genealogical records collected, the people who speak the Zhanmi language in some places first migrated from Fujian to Guangdong."
The local county annals record that Huang Zhaoyuan, a native of Dongguan in the late Ming Dynasty, fled to Haifeng with his troops after the failed uprising, and settled in the Ebu area. Due to the long-term influence of Hakka dialect and Hokkien dialect, a mixed dialect of Cantonese, Hokkien and Fujian was formed.
"The Zhanmi dialect retains a large number of ancient words, which reflects the inheritance of this dialect to ancient Chinese and has a high research value." Wu Fang introduced that the ancient words of this dialect can be traced back to ancient times, and it is not Shaogu words are still commonly used by the locals.
For example, the great-grandson is called "Xishun", which is in the same line as the name in the Warring States Period.
Wang Lining said that many dialects are "living fossils" of ancient history and culture.
"Imagine how shocking it would be if we could now hear Du Fu's pronunciation more than a thousand years ago."
On May 14, 2015, the Ministry of Education and the State Language Commission jointly issued the "Notice of the State Language Commission of the Ministry of Education on Launching the Chinese Language Resources Protection Project", and decided to start the "Chinese Language Resources Protection Project" (hereinafter referred to as "the "Chinese Language Resources Protection Project") from 2015. “Language Preservation Project”), carry out various work centered on the investigation, preservation, display, development and utilization of language resources nationwide, and plan to investigate 100 endangered minority language sites and 100 endangered Chinese dialect sites.
The important purpose of the "Language Preservation Project" is to leave "sound specimens" for endangered languages, not just written records.
Open the "Endangered Chronicle", each language is accompanied by a QR code, and after scanning the code, you can get the audio and video of the language - the melodious Kulun Mongolian ballads, the Zhejiang 28 dialects from the water town... When the distant voice Appearing in the ear, the reader seems to have the ability to span time and space.
"The protection of endangered languages is to preserve history and make history sound." Wang Lining said with emotion, we often talk about "making the words in ancient books come alive", and protecting and rescuing endangered languages is to let us hear the voices of ancient books and history , so that our future generations can hear us now.
Cao Zhiyun said that language conservation workers went to all parts of the country, and batches of live fieldwork corpus, audio and video data, and oral cultural resources gathered in the Chinese language resource database. Some languages and dialects that have never been recorded will remain before they die out. down their voices.
In the future, we can use artificial intelligence to resurrect these languages
When writing about an endangered language, Professor Li Daqin of Communication University of China usually uses the pronoun "she" to refer to the language his team investigates.
Li Daqin has rescued and protected more than 20 "shes" after conducting field investigations in Qamdo, Nyingchi, Shannan and other places in Tibet seven times.
Li Daqin first went to Tibet in 2001, when he was doing postdoctoral research under the tutelage of the famous linguist Sun Hongkai at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.
The first task he received was to go with teacher Jiang Di from the Academy of Social Sciences to Chayu County, Tibet to investigate the language of the people.
Li Daqin recalled that the field investigation 20 years ago was "as difficult and dangerous as learning from the west". When he went there, he went over mountains and mountains for three whole days to reach the town of Zayu County. On the way, he encountered many dangers of landslides and broken roads; within the past three months of the investigation Suffering from the shortage of supplies; on the way back, he was almost buried by a mudslide, and when two people climbed out of the car, the entire jeep was submerged by the mudslide.
When they returned to Beijing, they both had scars on their bodies.
But it was such a difficult experience that made Li Daqin determined to switch from theoretical grammar research to minority language investigation and protection.
"Because through that investigation, we discovered the first-hand corpus, and deeply felt the preciousness of these corpus." Li Daqin said that linguistic research in my country is in great need of these basic investigations, and the current lack of minority language corpus It is the biggest bottleneck of linguistic research in my country - this is where the great value of Chinese language protection work lies.
Sun Hongkai and other scholars are masters of linguistics who grew up in the field during the national census of Chinese dialects and minority languages in the 1950s.
The most representative is the Geman language of Tibet, which has been completely recorded under the relay protection of generations of linguists and has a permanent life.
According to a survey by several scholars including Sun Hongkai, around 1976, under the rule of Chayu County, there were still more than 200 people who could speak Geman.
However, when Li Daqin went to investigate in 2001, there were only more than 130 people who could speak Geman. By 2015, there were only 13 people who could speak Geman fluently.
Currently, the language has been classified as a critically endangered language.
Nevertheless, through the joint efforts of several generations of scholars, the materials and corresponding audio data of the language's phonetics, vocabulary, grammar, etc. have been well preserved.
Li Daqin said: "With these investigation results and the preserved audio-visual materials, we no longer have to worry about her demise. We are compiling a manuscript of nearly 1.2 million words, with more than 5,000 words, 1,000 sentences and 500,000 words attached. Annotated living discourse material, we can revive this language in the future with the help of artificial intelligence if necessary.”
It is understood that after the "Language Preservation Project" started, Li Daqin and the Language Preservation Team of the Communication University of China he led have basically completed the in-depth investigation of the languages of the ethnic minorities in the counties of Shannan, Nyingchi and Qamdo in the Tibet Autonomous Region. The preservation and rescue of languages used by very few ethnic groups has laid a solid foundation.
What is even more exciting is that during the investigation, the team also discovered some new languages, including Suguhua discovered in 2015, Songlin language and Zhahua discovered in 2021, etc.
Li Daqin said: "To a certain extent, we have achieved the wish of the older generation of scholars to carry out carpet research on the languages of Qamdo, Nyingchi and Shannan."
In recent years, a number of important achievements such as "Chinese Language and Culture Collection" and "Chinese Endangered Languages" have been released one after another, and the mystery of endangered languages is slowly being unveiled.
It is understood that the first series of "Endangered Chronicles" has a total of 30 volumes, including 10 Chinese dialects such as Anhui Qimen Military Dialect, Guangdong Dianbai Old Time Zheng Dialect, Gansu Dongxiang Tangwang Dialect, Hainan Sanya Huihui Dialect, Tibet Zayuda Dialect, etc. Rang language and other 20 minority languages.
At present, the second series of "Endangered Chronicles" has also completed the investigation, involving 20 endangered languages.
Wang Lining introduced that nearly 90 experts and scholars participated in the two series of "Endangered Chronicles", involving 56 scientific research units.
In order to complete the investigation of "Endangered Records", many authors walked from the ivory tower to the fields, not afraid of the severe cold and heat, carrying various equipment, running around the urban and rural countryside, streets and alleys, recording the disappearing local accents, and picking up scattered cultural fragments.
Some people knelt and worshipped with their relatives and friends in order to film the funeral scenes; some traveled dozens of miles across the mountains to find an old pavilion; some broke ribs due to slippery mountain roads and were hospitalized for several months; others lost their voices because of the theft of valuable equipment weeping...
"Saving endangered languages is all about fighting for life." In Li Daqin's view, the desperate spirit of language protectors stems from responsibility.
When a language or dialect goes critically endangered or disappears, it means that the cultural treasure house of human beings has lost a unique cultural concept system and a way of looking at the world and even coexisting with the world.
Language also has an "ecological system". Multilingualism is an ideal social ecological subsystem. After the variety of languages is enriched, our world of meaning will be fuller.
Language is the spiritual home of human beings. As a kind of cultural memory and cultural gene, dialect has many influences on individuals.
As Li Daqin said, "Hometown dialect accompanies us like a brand, constitutes the background of our life, and supports the joys, sorrows and joys of a lifetime".
(Our reporter Chen Xue)