A Language Is Forever Lost

When my parents and I migrated from Mexico to the United States the first thing that we were told was to learn to speak English if we ever wanted to get far in this country.  I remember having a great difficulty learning the complexity of the language, nothing made sense to me.  When I was enrolled in school I was the only child in class that could not speak the language and was often forgotten by the teacher.  When I finally did learn to speak some English it was still a bit confusing.  One day the teacher asked me if I wanted “hot lunch” or “cold lunch”.  I decided to go with the cold one because I thought that the hot one might burn my mouth.  It turns out that “hot lunch” was lunch from the cafeteria and “cold lunch” was lunch that was brought from home.  During lunch time one of the girls from my class was nice enough to share her food with me.  

According to the book, “Artists of the Floating World” by Professor Rob Burton, one language is gone forever every two weeks with the passing of the last person who knew that language.  To me this is very sad; I cannot imagine being the last person on earth who knows how to speak Spanish and knowing that once I am gone it too will go with me. 

Many times we do not appreciate the beauty of other languages simply because we do not understand or know how to speak it.   In my tenth grade English class my friend and I got in trouble every time we spoke Spanish, out teacher would tell us, “You are in the U.S. so you need speak English.”  I think that most of the time she did it because she thought that we were talking bad about others but the truth is that we were not.  I wonder if that teacher had understood Spanish if it would have then been okay to speak it.

Our media here in the U.S. has a lot to do with how we accept other languages and cultures.  The movies that we watch, the music that we listen to, and the foods that we eat are all influence by the media.  If I ever want to see a foreign movie, I know that most of the time I have to wait until it is out to be purchased because our movie theaters mainly show English movies.  Universities are other great ways to become culturally diverse, not only do they offer foreign language classed but they also bring artists from other cultures to speak and perfume on campus regularly.  

Not being able to properly communicate with other has great consequences and it makes everything much more difficult.  But our language is one of the things that make us unique from other countries and cultures.  This is why I believe that we should embrace different languages and not become angry when we hear other people speaking their language that we see as foreign.  Instead of becoming frustrated when we do not understand a language, we should try to learn it.