James Griffiths, a Welshman living in Hong Kong, explores how minority languages face extinction in our modern world of “super-tongues” and the race towards globalisation. Taking his native Welsh, Hawaiian and Cantonese as examples, he discovers how some languages have had to fight for their survival and how they are being saved from oblivion.
The section on Welsh resonates strongly with me as a Welshman. An 1846 government report on education in Wales concluded that the Welsh language was a “vast drawback” to the progress of Wales as a country, noting the tradition in schools of the “Welsh Not”, a wooden stick that was hung around the neck of any child heard speaking Welsh. This led to decades of marginalisation of the language. Later nationalistic acts of protest (or terrorism, depending on your outlook) against the perceived attacks on the Welsh language, including the investiture of Prince Charles in 1969, are examined, many of which were part of my childhood and early life. Griffiths skilfully reconstructs these momentous events and makes me hope he will consider writing an expanded book on this subject.
It is a miracle that the Hawaiian language has survived decades of colonisation by the British and the French, culminating in the islands becoming part of the United States in a coup. This had an adverse effect on the language as islanders were forced to learn English fluently. A “renaissance” in recent years has led to the survival of the Hawaiian language, culminating in and being accelerated by protests against the building of the Thirty-Metre Telescope at the summit of Hawaii’s highest mountain, Mauna Kea. The turbulent history of Hawaii is eye-opening because it is so jarring when viewed against the public perception of the islands.
Griffiths admits that including Cantonese in a book about endangered languages is unusual, but this section goes deep into the turbulent history of the Chinese and Tibetan languages, concluding that even Cantonese is at risk given the rapid decline of languages across China and the possibility of losing Hong Kong as a cultural hub.
Interludes are slotted in between the there main sections, one of which explores the birth of the Afrikaans language and how it became the language of apartheid. It’s legacy is still being felt today and this section contains quite graphic depictions of the violence which still splits South Africa, so be prepared.
Griffiths also spotlights the creators of Modern Hebrew and the much-maligned “universal” language Esperanto; the former seeking a language of a new Jewish state, the latter hoping to create a tongue too break down barriers between Jews and Gentiles. Both men shared a disdain for Yiddish, widely considered to be the language of the ghetto by most Jews. The Holocaust resulted in the end of Yiddish as the main Jewish languages as so many of its speakers perished, but it has since seen revival and recognition in recent years.
The main theme of this excellent book is that indigenous languages don’t die out, they are “uprooted by malice or neglect” by the “powerful at the expense of the powerless”. This is usually done through violence, and the reclamation of that lost identity also often leads to violence, as the stories depicted in the book all too clearly confirm. As well as a history of these languages, it takes in politics, religion, identity and mythology. Meticulously researched, profound and often shocking, “Speak Not” is a triumphant celebration of just a handful of the many endangered languages of the world and a reminder of the fragility of national identity. You will also learn how to ask where the toilet is in Welsh, Hawaiian and Cantonese.
