Every Two Weeks

Every Two Weeks

Cultural diversity is analogous to biodiversity. They are two sides of the same coin. One concerns memes, the other concerns genes. Some people are aware there is a tremendous loss of biodiversity occurring right now. Some fewer are aware there is a similar loss occurring of cultural diversity. Many people would say, “so what”? So what indeed. I would say that loss of cultural diversity vies with loss of biodiversity as one of the top threats our species faces.

Twenty years ago, Ken Hale who was a linguist…
He said that of the six-thousand languages spoken on Earth right now, three-thousand aren’t spoken by the children, so that in one generation, we’re going to halve our cultural diversity.
He went on to say that every two weeks, an elder goes to the grave, carrying the last spoken word of that culture.
So, an entire philosophy, a body of knowledge about the natural world that has been empirically gleaned over centuries, goes away.
And this happens every two weeks.

http://ocrmirror.iiens.net/files/music/remixes/Chrono_Trigger_Corridor_of_Time_(Time_Warp_Mix)_OC_ReMix.mp3