The Languages Lost To Climate Change | NOEMA
Climate catastrophes and biodiversity loss are endangering languages across the globe.
气候灾难和生物多样性丧失正在危及全球的语言。
Julia Webster Ayuso is a freelance journalist based in Paris.
朱莉娅·韦伯斯特·阿尤索 (Julia Webster Ayuso) 是驻巴黎的自由记者。
For generations, Lars Miguel Utsi’s family has lived in the small town of Jokkmokk in northern Sweden, where reindeer husbandry is a way of life.
拉尔斯·米格尔·乌特西 (Lars Miguel Utsi) 的家人世代居住在瑞典北部的约克莫克小镇，驯鹿饲养是那里的一种生活方式。
In a part of the world where most of us would see just an endless expanse of white snow, Utsi perceives the landscape in intricate detail, recognizing subtle features of the frozen terrain so vital to his livelihood.
在世界上的一个地方，我们大多数人都会看到一望无际的白雪，乌西以错综复杂的细节感知景观，认识到冰冻地形的微妙特征对他的生计至关重要。
The Sámi, Europe’s only recognized Indigenous group, have lived here for thousands of years, and their language reflects deep ties to the land.
萨米人是欧洲唯一得到承认的土著群体，他们已经在这里生活了数千年，他们的语言反映了与这片土地的深厚联系。
The nine Sámi languages still in use have an extensive vocabulary for snow — everything from åppås , untouched winter snow without tracks; to habllek , a light, airy dust-like snow; and tjaevi , flakes that stick together and are hard to dig.
仍在使用的九种萨米语言拥有丰富的雪词汇——从 åppås（没有痕迹的未受破坏的冬雪）到 åppås（没有痕迹的未受破坏的冬季雪），应有尽有。哈布莱克（habllek），一种轻盈、飘逸、尘埃般的雪； tjaevi 是粘在一起且难以挖掘的薄片。
Their terminology to describe reindeer is even more intricate and is used to classify the animals according to sex, age, color, fertility, tameness and more.
他们描述驯鹿的术语更加复杂，用于根据性别、年龄、颜色、生育能力、驯服性等对动物进行分类。
For example, a reandi is a male reindeer with long antlers, ruvggáladat is a reindeer that has run away from the herd, and čearpmat-eadni is “a female reindeer that has lost its calf of the same year but is accompanied by the previous year’s calf.”
例如，reandi 是长鹿角的雄性驯鹿，ruvggáladat 是逃离鹿群的驯鹿，而 čearpmat-eadni 是“失去同年幼崽但有前一年幼崽陪伴的雌性驯鹿”。
But reindeer herders like Utsi have noticed how quickly their language is fading alongside their changing landscape.
但像乌特西这样的驯鹿牧民注意到，随着环境的变化，他们的语言正在迅速消失。
Though Northern Sámi is his mother tongue, he is keenly aware of the gaps in his vocabulary — words that don’t seem to make it from one generation to another.
尽管北萨米语是他的母语，但他敏锐地意识到自己词汇中的空白——这些词汇似乎无法代代相传。
“When you talk to someone older today, they have a richer language.
“当你与今天的老年人交谈时，他们的语言更加丰富。
They have more words about nature, about formations in nature, animals and reindeer especially.
他们有更多关于自然、自然形态、动物和驯鹿的话语。
They certainly have more snow words,” said Utsi, who is also a former chair of the language board and vice president of the Sámi Parliament of Sweden.
他们肯定有更多的雪词，”乌特西说，他也是瑞典萨米议会语言委员会前主席和副主席。
“It’s a source of sorrow for me.”
“这对我来说是悲伤的根源。”
One word especially demonstrates what is at stake: the Northern Sámi word ealát , which Utsi said could be loosely translated as “the ideal conditions for reindeer to find lichen to graze.” It’s the kind of word that resists translation — a complex term that implies that a variety of factors (plants, snow, geography, lichens and reindeer) have all come together in harmony.
有一个词特别说明了其中的利害关系：北萨米语词 ealát ，乌齐说，它可以粗略地翻译为“驯鹿找到地衣吃草的理想条件”。这是一个难以翻译的词——一个复杂的术语，意味着多种因素（植物、雪、地理、地衣和驯鹿）和谐地结合在一起。
But nowadays, “it’s used less and less because we don’t see those conditions that much anymore,” Utsi told me.
但如今，“它的使用越来越少，因为我们不再经常看到这些情况了，”乌特西告诉我。
Jokkmokk is a major center of reindeer husbandry in Sweden in a region known as Sápmi, which covers portions of northern Norway, Sweden, Finland and the Murmansk Oblast in Russia.
约克莫克是瑞典驯鹿饲养的主要中心，位于萨普米地区，该地区覆盖挪威北部、瑞典、芬兰和俄罗斯摩尔曼斯克州的部分地区。
The Indigenous Sámi people here are particularly vulnerable to the effects of climate change: Scientists say the Arctic is warming nearly four times faster than the rest of the world.
这里的土著萨米人特别容易受到气候变化的影响：科学家表示，北极变暖的速度几乎是世界其他地区的四倍。
Over centuries, the reindeer have adapted to the region’s harsh climatic conditions, developing shovel-like hooves that help them dig for lichen and other plants hidden beneath the snow.
几个世纪以来，驯鹿已经适应了该地区恶劣的气候条件，长出了铲子状的蹄子，帮助它们挖掘地衣和隐藏在雪下的其他植物。
But as temperatures rise, creating more rain than snow, the ground has turned icy and made it impossible for the reindeer to dig through.
但随着气温升高，雨水多于雪，地面结冰，驯鹿无法挖洞。
Early snowmelt causes abnormal seasonal floods, forming barriers to herding and destroying the food supply.
早期融雪会导致异常的季节性洪水，对畜牧业造成障碍并破坏食物供应。
Studies have found that in the last century, reindeer habitats have decreased by 70%, caused in part by man-made flooding for hydroelectric dams.
研究发现，上个世纪，驯鹿栖息地减少了 70%，部分原因是水电站大坝的人为洪水。
These changes threaten both wildlife and the cultural practices of reindeer herding that have defined the Sámi way of life for generations.
这些变化威胁着野生动物和驯鹿放牧的文化习俗，这些文化习俗定义了萨米人世世代代的生活方式。
At the same time, Sámi reindeer herders are fighting another battle: the loss of their languages.
与此同时，萨米驯鹿牧民正在进行另一场战斗：失去他们的语言。
Sweden and Finland have recently revealed plans to cut funding for the Sámi Giellagáldu , a body created to safeguard and preserve Sámi languages.
瑞典和芬兰最近透露计划削减对萨米人吉尔拉加杜 (Sámi Giellagáldu) 的资助，该机构是为保护萨米语言而成立的。
UNESCO regards all remaining nine Sámi languages as endangered .
联合国教科文组织将所有剩余的九种萨米语言视为濒临灭绝的语言。
Northern Sámi is the most widely spoken, with an estimated 20,000 to 30,000 speakers, while Ume Sami is believed to have less than 50 speakers left.
北萨米语是使用最广泛的语言，估计有 20,000 至 30,000 人使用，而乌梅萨米语据信仅剩不到 50 人。
While the causes of their decline are complex, the fading of Sámi words reflects the broader erosion of their way of life.
虽然萨米语衰落的原因很复杂，但萨米语的衰落反映了他们的生活方式受到更广泛的侵蚀。
Reindeer herders like Utsi are at a literal loss for words when faced with their changing environment, and this signals an uncertain future: What is left when the things you have words for begin to disappear?
像乌特西这样的驯鹿牧民在面对不断变化的环境时简直无言以对，这预示着一个不确定的未来：当你用语言描述的事物开始消失时，还剩下什么？
The Sámi languages have been shaped by their environment and the need for survival in harsh conditions.
萨米语是由其环境和在恶劣条件下生存的需要而形成的。
If they were to disappear, so too could the deep knowledge and expertise that has been passed down through generations.
如果它们消失了，代代相传的深厚知识和专业知识也会消失。
Scientists and linguists have discovered a striking connection between the world’s biodiversity and its languages.
科学家和语言学家发现世界生物多样性与其语言之间存在惊人的联系。
Areas rich in biological diversity also tend to be rich in linguistic diversity (a high concentration of languages).
生物多样性丰富的地区往往也具有丰富的语言多样性（语言高度集中）。
While this co-occurrence is not yet fully understood, a strong geographic correlation suggests multiple factors (ecological, social, cultural) influence both forms of diversity, which are also declining at alarming rates.
虽然这种共现现象尚未完全被理解，但强烈的地理相关性表明多种因素（生态、社会、文化）影响着这两种形式的多样性，而多样性也在以惊人的速度下降。
These high-diversity areas are also often at the front lines of the climate crisis.
这些高度多样性的地区也常常处于气候危机的前线。
Where plant and animal species are disappearing, languages, dialects and unique expressions often follow a similar pattern of decline.
在植物和动物物种消失的地方，语言、方言和独特的表达方式也往往遵循类似的衰退模式。
The Arctic may not be an obvious biodiversity hotspot, like the Brazilian Amazon or Tanzania’s coastal forests, but it plays a critical role in regulating and stabilizing the Earth’s climate and supporting life on our planet.
北极可能不像巴西亚马逊或坦桑尼亚的沿海森林那样是明显的生物多样性热点地区，但它在调节和稳定地球气候以及支持地球上的生命方面发挥着关键作用。
Scientists often say that “what happens in the Arctic does not stay in the Arctic,” and any disruption to its habitat has far-reaching consequences for humanity.
科学家经常说，“北极发生的事情不会留在北极”，对其栖息地的任何破坏都会对人类产生深远的影响。
Indigenous communities have deep relationships with the land they have occupied for generations, and this close relationship is reflected in the languages they speak — how they talk about the landscape, and how they express the beliefs and customs in which those languages developed.
原住民社区与他们世代居住的土地有着深厚的关系，这种密切的关系反映在他们所说的语言中——他们如何谈论景观，以及他们如何表达这些语言发展起来的信仰和习俗。
When their relationships with the land suffer, so can their languages.
当他们与土地的关系受到影响时，他们的语言也会受到影响。
For example, Vanuatu, a South Pacific island nation with the highest density of languages on the planet (110 languages across 4,707 square miles), is home to 138 threatened plant and animal species.
例如，瓦努阿图是一个南太平洋岛国，拥有地球上语言密度最高的国家（4,707 平方英里的土地上有 110 种语言），是 138 种受威胁动植物物种的家园。
It is also one of the countries that is particularly vulnerable to sea level rise and climate-related natural disasters.
它也是特别容易受到海平面上升和气候相关自然灾害影响的国家之一。
Scientists warn that the climate crisis has become the “final nail in the coffin” for many Indigenous languages, as coastal communities are forced to relocate.
科学家警告说，随着沿海社区被迫搬迁，气候危机已成为许多土著语言的“棺材上的最后一颗钉子”。
When they can no longer depend on the land, communities may be forced to emigrate to other areas where their languages aren’t spoken, leaving behind not just their mother tongue, but all the wisdom contained in it.
当他们不能再依赖土地时，社区可能会被迫移民到不讲他们语言的其他地区，留下的不仅是他们的母语，还有其中包含的所有智慧。
There is also evidence to suggest that in cases where a language begins to decline — due to economic or social factors, for example — people may gradually stop caring for the land.
还有证据表明，如果一种语言开始衰落——例如由于经济或社会因素——人们可能会逐渐停止关心土地。
When languages are abandoned, the traditional ecological knowledge they carry is also left behind.
当语言被抛弃时，它们所承载的传统生态知识也随之被遗弃。
“Our language and traditional practices are closely tied to the land,” a community leader from Dishchii’bikoh, a tribally controlled school, in Cibecue, Arizona, told researchers in a 2016 study.
“我们的语言和传统习俗与土地密切相关，”亚利桑那州 Cibecue 的部落控制学校 Dishchii’bikoh 的一位社区领袖在 2016 年的一项研究中告诉研究人员。
“In many ways, it is used in describing objects, teaching moral lessons, and expressing our purpose on this land.
“在很多方面，它被用来描述物体、教授道德课程以及表达我们在这片土地上的目的。
Since the loss of our traditional language …
自从我们的传统语言消失......
our traditional ecological knowledge has become more and more threatened.”
我们的传统生态知识已经受到越来越多的威胁。”
Increasingly, Indigenous communities are pointing to the inextricable link between language and biodiversity as evidence that humans are not separate from nature, but very much a part of it.
越来越多的土著社区指出语言和生物多样性之间存在着千丝万缕的联系，以此作为人类并非与自然分离，而是自然的一部分的证据。
In the early ‘90s, as conservationists were warning of the alarming decline in biodiversity, linguist Luisa Maffi was studying the loss of the world’s languages, and it occurred to her that these two trends may be connected.
上世纪 90 年代初，当自然资源保护主义者警告生物多样性惊人下降时，语言学家路易莎·马菲 (Luisa Maffi) 正在研究世界语言的消失，她突然想到这两种趋势可能是相关的。
“Suddenly, it struck me: these are all forms of diversity of life on Earth,” Maffi told me from her home in British Columbia.
“突然间，我突然意识到：这些都是地球上生命多样性的形式，”马菲在不列颠哥伦比亚省的家中告诉我。
“Diversity in nature, but also the diversity of human cultures and languages.
“自然的多样性，以及人类文化和语言的多样性。
They’re interrelated, interconnected and interdependent.
它们是相互关联、相互关联和相互依存的。
So, what is happening to one also affects what happens to the other.”
因此，一个人身上发生的事情也会影响另一个人身上发生的事情。”
She soon realized she wasn’t alone in coming to this conclusion.
她很快意识到她并不是唯一一个得出这个结论的人。
In 1988, the First International Congress of Ethnobiology in Belém, Brazil, declared that “there is an inextricable link between cultural and biological diversity.” But it was after another conference in 1995 — where Maffi met David Harmon, a conservationist who had gathered data about this “converging extinction crisis” — that the two founded Terralingua.
1988年，在巴西贝伦举行的第一届国际民族生物学大会宣称“文化和生物多样性之间存在着密不可分的联系”。但直到 1995 年的另一次会议之后，马菲遇到了环境保护主义者戴维·哈蒙 (David Harmon)，他收集了有关这场“趋同的灭绝危机”的数据，两人创立了 Terralingua。
According to its website, the nonprofit focuses on “ biocultural diversity ,” a term they popularized, which expresses how “biodiversity, cultural diversity and linguistic diversity are all bound together.”
根据其网站，该非营利组织专注于“生物文化多样性”，这是他们流行的一个术语，它表达了“生物多样性、文化多样性和语言多样性如何紧密结合在一起”。
Data on the world’s languages was difficult to come across at the time.
当时很难找到有关世界语言的数据。
One of the only comprehensive databases was The Ethnologue, which began cataloging languages in 1951.
The Ethnologue 是唯一的综合数据库之一，它于 1951 年开始对语言进行编目。
Languages change rapidly, and not everyone agrees on where one ends, and another one begins.
语言变化很快，并不是每个人都同意一种语言的结束和另一种语言的开始。
So Terralingua created the Index of Linguistic Diversity , which it defines on its website as the “first-ever quantitative measure of trends in the world’s linguistic diversity.” It showed that between 1970 and 2005, global linguistic diversity had declined by an estimated 20%, with Indigenous languages most affected.
因此，Terralingua 创建了语言多样性指数，并在其网站上将其定义为“有史以来第一个对世界语言多样性趋势进行定量衡量的指标”。报告显示，1970 年至 2005 年间，全球语言多样性估计下降了 20%，其中土著语言受到的影响最大。
This data taken alongside biodiversity data reveals a striking observation.
这些数据与生物多样性数据一起揭示了一个惊人的观察结果。
The trends in language loss closely mirrored the decline in global biodiversity.
语言丧失的趋势密切反映了全球生物多样性的下降。
The World Wildlife Fund’s Living Planet Index found that in that same time period, plant and animal species had shrunk by an average of 27% .
世界自然基金会的地球生命力指数发现，同一时期内，动植物物种平均减少了 27%。
Terralingua’s Index of Linguistic Diversity was based on earlier work by Harmon and Jonathan Loh , a scientist specializing in global biological and cultural diversity, that suggested connections between the state of the world’s linguistic diversity and the state of biodiversity.
Terralingua 的语言多样性指数基于 Harmon 和专门研究全球生物和文化多样性的科学家 Jonathan Loh 的早期工作，该工作提出了世界语言多样性状况与生物多样性状况之间的联系。
In 2012, a study published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), revealed that biodiversity hotspots and high-biodiversity wilderness areas are home to 70% of the world’s languages.
2012年，《美国国家科学院院刊》（PNAS）发表的一项研究表明，生物多样性热点地区和高生物多样性荒野地区是世界上70%语言的家园。
It also highlighted that many of these languages are endemic to their regions and at risk of extinction, and noted the parallel declines in global linguistic and biological diversity.
报告还强调，其中许多语言是其所在地区的特有语言，并面临灭绝的风险，并指出全球语言和生物多样性的同步下降。
“What we were able to show was that about three-quarters of the languages on the planet are spoken in areas that contain high biodiversity, which is about one-fourth of the land surface, excluding Antarctica,” says Larry Gorenflo, co-author of the study and professor of landscape architecture, geography, African studies and anthropology at The Pennsylvania State University.
“我们能够证明，地球上大约四分之三的语言是在生物多样性丰富的地区使用的，这些地区大约占陆地表面的四分之一，不包括南极洲，”该研究的合著者、宾夕法尼亚州立大学景观建筑、地理学、非洲研究和人类学教授拉里·戈伦弗洛(Larry Gorenflo)说。
“Some of these biodiversity hotspots are just completely off the charts in terms of how much linguistic diversity they have.”
“其中一些生物多样性热点地区的语言多样性程度完全超出了图表。”
Linguistic diversity can be seen as an indicator of cultural diversity more broadly, Gorenflo says, which has traditionally been more difficult to define.
戈伦弗洛说，语言多样性可以被视为更广泛的文化多样性的指标，而文化多样性传统上更难以定义。
“For a long time, anthropology was considered to be the social science that studied culture.
“长期以来，人类学被认为是研究文化的社会科学。
But nobody could come to an agreement about what culture was,” he says.
但没人能就什么是文化达成一致。”他说。
“Linguistic diversity is really what we’re using as a proxy for cultural diversity.”
“语言多样性确实是我们用来衡量文化多样性的指标。”
The exact reasons behind the connections between languages and nature are not entirely clear, Gorenflo told me.
戈伦弗洛告诉我，语言与自然之间联系背后的确切原因尚不完全清楚。
Previous studies have suggested that areas with a high number of resources create linguistic diversity because people must adapt to more complex environments.
先前的研究表明，资源丰富的地区创造了语言多样性，因为人们必须适应更复杂的环境。
But others have argued that it’s because more plentiful resources reduce the likelihood of having to share them and communicate with neighboring groups in times of need.
但其他人则认为，这是因为更丰富的资源减少了在需要时与邻近群体共享资源和沟通的可能性。
Meanwhile, some research has suggested that the reasons behind this co-occurrence are far more complex and differ from one area to another.
与此同时，一些研究表明，这种同时发生背后的原因要复杂得多，并且因地区而异。
Gorenflo emphasized the need for more research.
Gorenflo 强调需要进行更多研究。
“Understanding this connection is important because it would change how we manage the relationship between Indigenous people and biological diversity — and nature.”
“了解这种联系很重要，因为它将改变我们管理原住民与生物多样性以及自然之间关系的方式。”
Linguists estimate there are around 8,324 languages in the world, of which, according to Ethnologue , 7,164 are still spoken today.
语言学家估计世界上大约有 8,324 种语言，根据 Ethnologue 的说法，其中 7,164 种至今仍在使用。
However, the distribution of the world’s population across these languages is uneven.
然而，这些语言的世界人口分布并不均匀。
More than half of the world’s 8 billion people speak one of just 25 languages.
世界 80 亿人口中有一半以上使用 25 种语言中的一种。
Most of the remaining 7,139 languages have only a few speakers.
其余 7,139 种语言中的大多数只有少数人使用。
About half of all languages are spoken by communities of 10,000 or fewer people, while hundreds have just 10 or fewer speakers.
大约一半的语言是由 10,000 人或更少人口的社区使用的，而数百人只有 10 人或更少的人使用。
According to Ethnologue’s executive editor, Gary Simmons, a language dies roughly every 40 days .
根据 Ethnologue 的执行编辑 Gary Simmons 的说法，大约每 40 天就有一种语言消亡。
Linguist Kenneth Hale has described losing just one language as equivalent to “dropping a bomb on the Louvre” because of the culture and “intellectual wealth” contained in each of them.
语言学家肯尼思·黑尔 (Kenneth Hale) 将失去一种语言描述为相当于“在卢浮宫投下一颗炸弹”，因为每种语言都包含着文化和“智力财富”。
The rate of language death is expected to increase as children stop learning them and older speakers die out.
随着儿童停止学习语言以及年长的语言使用者的消失，语言死亡率预计将会上升。
Most languages vanished without a trace because, for most of human history, they were exclusively oral.
大多数语言消失得无影无踪，因为在人类历史的大部分时间里，它们完全是口头的。
Yet it’s these endangered languages that reveal the beauty of human diversity and the flexibility of the human mind.
然而，正是这些濒临灭绝的语言揭示了人类多样性之美和人类思维的灵活性。
Some specialize in talking about herbal medicine , astronomy or seaweed .
有些专门谈论草药、天文学或海藻。
Languages are repositories of wisdom passed down through generations, and often that wisdom is ecological .
语言是代代相传的智慧宝库，而这种智慧往往是生态的。
In western Canada and the United States, phrases in Indigenous languages indicate when wild plants should be harvested.
在加拿大西部和美国，土著语言中的短语表示何时应收获野生植物。
Indigenous Australians define seasons based on signals like the flowering native trees , which in turn inform their fire management techniques to control wildfires.
澳大利亚原住民根据开花的本地树木等信号来定义季节，这些信号反过来又为他们控制野火的火灾管理技术提供了信息。
Traditional Sámi calendars have 13 months based on plants and animal activity of a particular time of year, such as miessemánnu (reindeer calf month) and borgemánnu (reindeer-coat-shifting month).
传统的萨米日历根据一年中特定时间的植物和动物活动划分为 13 个月，例如 miessemánnu（驯鹿小牛月）和 borgemánnu（驯鹿换毛月）。
But it’s perhaps the Lakota phrase “Mitákuye Oyás’iŋ,” meaning both “all my relatives” (human and non-human) and “all is related,” that best encapsulates the interconnectedness of humans and nature.
但也许拉科塔语短语“Mitákuye Oyás’iŋ”的意思是“我所有的亲戚”（人类和非人类）和“一切都是相关的”，最能概括人类与自然的相互联系。
Many endangered languages express reverence and respect for nature and an awareness of the balance that must be maintained.
许多濒临灭绝的语言表达了对自然的崇敬和尊重，以及对必须维持平衡的认识。
“For communities that have an intimate connection with the local environment, the land is the teacher.
“对于与当地环境有密切联系的社区来说，土地就是老师。
You have to learn the lessons of the land to survive and thrive, and all of that, of course, gets encoded in your value system, which is expressed through language,” Maffi told me.
你必须学习这片土地的教训才能生存和繁荣，当然，所有这些都被编码到你的价值体系中，并通过语言表达出来，”马菲告诉我。
“Nowhere are you going to find a philosophy that says, ‘take as much as you want and damn the future.’” Read Noema in print.
“你在任何地方都找不到这样的哲学：‘想拿多少就拿多少，然后毁了未来。’”诺埃玛在印刷品中读到。
The remarkable concentration of languages in the world’s most biologically diverse regions — particularly the tropics and areas near the equator — may be partly explained by the protective role of these wilderness areas against colonization.
语言在世界上生物多样性最丰富的地区（尤其是热带地区和赤道附近地区）显着集中，部分原因可能是这些荒野地区对殖民化的保护作用。
Historically, language death was frequently driven by colonialism, and as Alfred Crosby argues in “Ecological Imperialism,” European colonizers generally favored temperate areas with flat, arable land that was easier to settle and farm.
从历史上看，语言的消亡往往是由殖民主义造成的，正如阿尔弗雷德·克罗斯比在《生态帝国主义》中所指出的那样，欧洲殖民者普遍青睐拥有平坦、可耕地、更容易定居和耕种的温带地区。
In contrast, tropical regions posed more challenges, including diseases Europeans were more vulnerable to because they lacked immunity.
相比之下，热带地区带来了更多挑战，包括欧洲人由于缺乏免疫力而更容易感染疾病。
Isolated areas that are difficult to access also tend to be more diverse.
难以到达的偏远地区也往往更加多样化。
“Mountains and islands are where you find a lot of biodiversity.
“山脉和岛屿是拥有丰富生物多样性的地方。
And if they are hard places to move around in, you’ll find a fair amount of cultural diversity as well,” Gorenflo adds.
如果它们是难以移动的地方，你也会发现相当多的文化多样性，”Gorenflo 补充道。
However, in the areas they did colonize, Europeans quickly realized that language was crucial to their mission.
然而，在他们殖民的地区，欧洲人很快意识到语言对他们的使命至关重要。
To dominate politically and economically, colonizing powers identified a need to dominate linguistically as well.
为了在政治和经济上占据主导地位，殖民国家也需要在语言上占据主导地位。
The Spanish scholar Antonio de Nebrija argued for the value of writing grammar and dictionaries in Castilian Spanish, writing in 1492: “Language has always been the companion of empire.” By the early 20th century, centuries of colonialism had claimed around 20% of the Indigenous languages of Australia, the U.S., South Africa, and Argentina.
西班牙学者安东尼奥·德·内布里哈 (Antonio de Nebrija) 论证了用卡斯蒂利亚西班牙语编写语法和词典的价值，并于 1492 年写道：“语言一直是帝国的伴侣。”到 20 世纪初，几个世纪的殖民主义夺走了澳大利亚、美国、南非和阿根廷约 20% 的土著语言。
By eradicating their mother tongues, colonizers disconnected local populations from their culture, memory, sense of communal identity and relationship to the land, which had now also been taken away from them.
通过消灭他们的母语，殖民者使当地居民与他们的文化、记忆、社区认同感以及与土地的关系脱节，而这些现在也被从他们身上夺走了。
“Language, any language, has a dual character: it is both a means of communication and a carrier of culture,” Kenyan novelist Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o wrote .
“语言，任何语言，都具有双重特征：它既是一种交流手段，又是文化的载体，”肯尼亚小说家 Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o 写道。
It also stopped them from passing on their knowledge to the next generation.
这也阻止了他们将知识传授给下一代。
A “colonizing [of] the mind,” as Ngũgĩ famously put it.
正如 Ngũgĩ 所说的那样，这是“思想的殖民”。
Today, language loss is often a consequence of what many people living in industrialized societies might describe as “progress”: intermarriage, the instruction of more “popular” languages in schools and immigration for better opportunities.
如今，语言的丧失往往是生活在工业化社会的许多人所描述的“进步”的结果：异族通婚、在学校教授更“流行”的语言以及为了更好的机会而移民。
Indigenous languages can be hard to maintain once speakers are immersed in new lives and their languages are no longer being used within their intended contexts.
一旦说话者沉浸在新的生活中并且他们的语言不再在其预期的环境中使用，土著语言可能很难维持。
Paradoxically, the idea that humans are separate from nature has also been central to the ideology around conservation.
矛盾的是，人类与自然分离的想法也一直是保护意识形态的核心。
During a trip to the United States in 1919, King Albert I of Belgium visited three of the country’s national parks: Yellowstone, Yosemite and the Grand Canyon.
1919 年，比利时国王阿尔伯特一世访问美国期间，参观了该国的三个国家公园：黄石国家公园、优胜美地国家公园和大峡谷国家公园。
It was just a few years after President Woodrow Wilson signed an act creating a National Park Service, intended to protect 35 national parks and monuments.
就在几年前，伍德罗·威尔逊 (Woodrow Wilson) 总统签署了一项法案，成立了国家公园管理局，旨在保护 35 个国家公园和古迹。
King Albert, inspired by what he had seen across the Atlantic, decided to create his own park a few years later in 1925, which he named The Albert National Park in the Belgian Congo.
阿尔伯特国王受到大西洋彼岸所见所闻的启发，决定在几年后的 1925 年创建自己的公园，并将其命名为比属刚果阿尔伯特国家公园。
Now known as the Virunga National Park, located in the Congo, it is considered the first national park to be established on the African continent.
现在被称为维龙加国家公园，位于刚果，被认为是非洲大陆建立的第一个国家公园。
The concept of a “national park” emerged from a 19th-century conservation movement rooted in the idea that nature should be separated and protected from the people who live within it.
“国家公园”的概念源于 19 世纪的保护运动，其理念是自然应该与居住在其中的人类分开并受到保护。
The Belgian authorities claimed only around 300 people lived in the park, but they, in fact, violently pushed out thousands of Hutus and Tutsis from the area.
比利时当局声称公园里只有约 300 人居住，但事实上，他们暴力地将数千名胡图族和图西族人赶出了该地区。
Over the years, its biodiversity has been threatened by conflict , deforestation , poaching and oil and gas drilling , while its “fortress” conservation model (environments that are kept untouched by human influence) has been criticized for preventing local populations from accessing its resources.
多年来，其生物多样性受到冲突、森林砍伐、偷猎以及石油和天然气钻探的威胁，而其“堡垒”保护模式（不受人类影响的环境）因阻止当地居民获取其资源而受到批评。
A similar story unfolded a few decades earlier in the valley now known as Yosemite.
几十年前，在现在被称为优胜美地的山谷中也发生过类似的故事。
When the naturalist John Muir arrived in 1868, he marveled at its stunning landscape, unaware that its beauty was the result of careful management by the Ahwahneechee, a mixed tribe of Northern Paiutes and Southern Sierra Miwoks.
当博物学家约翰·缪尔 (John Muir) 1868 年抵达这里时，他惊叹于这里令人惊叹的景观，却没有意识到这里的美丽是阿瓦尼奇 (Ahwahneechee) 精心管理的结果，阿瓦尼奇是北派尤特人和南塞拉米沃克人的混合部落。
These communities, who spoke languages that reflected a deep understanding of local plants and animals, were violently displaced by the Mariposa Battalion led by James Savage in 1851.
这些社区的语言反映了对当地动植物的深刻理解，但 1851 年，他们被詹姆斯·萨维奇 (James Savage) 领导的马里波萨营 (Mariposa Battalion) 暴力驱赶。
After the national park was created, based on Muir’s idea of “pure wilderness,” their way of life was increasingly restricted.
国家公园建立后，基于缪尔“纯粹荒野”的理念，他们的生活方式越来越受到限制。
Indigenous inhabitants were moved to a village named Indian Canyon, which was eventually destroyed and its inhabitants evicted.
土著居民被迁移到一个名为印第安峡谷的村庄，该村庄最终被摧毁，居民被驱逐。
In her book “Savage Dreams,” Rebecca Solnit writes that by 1969, “the original goal of the Mariposa Battalion was coming closer to realization: eviction of the Ahwaneechee from the valley after their millennia there.”
丽贝卡·索尔尼特 (Rebecca Solnit) 在她的著作《野蛮之梦》(Savage Dreams) 中写道，到 1969 年，“马里波萨营的最初目标越来越接近实现：将在山谷中生活了数千年的阿瓦尼奇人 (Ahwaneechee) 逐出。”
Today, only 400 people still speak the Northern Paiute language, while the Southern Sierra Miwok language has dwindled to just a handful of speakers.
如今，只有 400 人仍然讲北派尤特语，而讲南塞拉米沃克语的人已减少到极少数。
Meanwhile, studies have since shown that their removal led to ecological decline.
与此同时，研究表明，它们的移除导致了生态衰退。
A 1996 report by the Sierra Nevada Ecosystem Project concluded that there was “an ecological ‘vacuum,’ or disequilibrium, in the Sierra Nevada, resulting from the departure of Native Americans from managing these ecosystems.” The removal of Indigenous communities, along with their land management techniques – often justified in the name of conservation – has likely exacerbated environmental degradation, such as devastating wildfires like those seen recently in Los Angeles.
内华达山脉生态系统项目 1996 年的一份报告得出的结论是，“内华达山脉存在生态‘真空’或不平衡，这是由于美洲原住民不再管理这些生态系统造成的。”原住民社区的迁移以及他们的土地管理技术（通常以保护的名义是合理的）可能会加剧环境退化，例如最近在洛杉矶发生的毁灭性野火。
“People are a really important part of ecosystems,” Gorenflo told me.
“人是生态系统非常重要的一部分，”戈伦弗洛告诉我。
“Language loss may drive biodiversity loss in part because the language loss would disconnect people from a lot of traditional behavior patterns like landscape management,” he explained, adding that there is now growing recognition that Indigenous peoples and local communities are the best stewards of their land.
他解释说：“语言丧失可能会导致生物多样性丧失，部分原因是语言丧失会使人们脱离许多传统行为模式，例如景观管理。”他补充说，现在人们越来越认识到原住民和当地社区是他们土地的最佳管理者。
“If you lose the language, that’s one of the pieces of the puzzle that will cause the connection to collapse.
“如果你失去了语言，这就是导致联系崩溃的难题之一。
The people who speak those languages in many cases followed traditional behavior, and those traditional behaviors — in terms of landscape management and resource use, and even conservation in some cases — end up benefitting the biodiversity world.”
在许多情况下，讲这些语言的人遵循传统行为，而这些传统行为——在景观管理和资源利用方面，甚至在某些情况下的保护方面——最终使生物多样性世界受益。”
Of course, most Indigenous land has not been lost to national parks, but to mass agriculture and urban sprawl.
当然，大多数原住民土地并不是因为国家公园而流失，而是因为大规模农业和城市扩张而流失。
In the Sonoran Desert, the decline of plants such as mesquite and cottonwood has impacted the traditional ceremonies of the Indigenous Yoeme communities, who depend on the natural world for many of their rituals.
在索诺兰沙漠，豆科灌木和三叶杨等植物的衰退影响了土著约姆社区的传统仪式，他们的许多仪式都依赖于自然世界。
Their knowledge of the Sonoran landscape is featured in many of the Yoeme’s songs, but as these areas become more built-up and plants disappear, the songs lose their meaning and, consequently, are no longer passed on to future generations.
他们对索诺兰风景的了解在约伊姆人的许多歌曲中都有体现，但随着这些地区的建筑越来越多，植物消失，这些歌曲就失去了意义，因此不再传递给后代。
Maffi sees the abundance of languages, cultures and biodiversity in an area as interdependent elements that mutually benefit each other.
马菲认为，一个地区丰富的语言、文化和生物多样性是相互依存、互惠互利的要素。
Thus, preserving the world’s languages could also be considered a vital tool in combatting the climate crisis.
因此，保护世界语言也可以被视为应对气候危机的重要工具。
In Hawaii, the green sea turtle, or honu — an endangered species protected by U.S. federal law — has long been a powerful symbol of Hawaiian culture, embodying wisdom, protection and spiritual guidance.
在夏威夷，绿海龟（honu）是一种受美国联邦法律保护的濒危物种，长期以来一直是夏威夷文化的有力象征，体现着智慧、保护和精神指引。
In traditional Hawaiian belief, the honu is an ‘aumakua , a personal or family god, or a deified ancestor.
在传统的夏威夷信仰中，honu 是“aumakua”，个人神或家庭神，或者被神化的祖先。
Many ‘aumakua are animals, but also plants — a tradition that echoes how the Lakota view other living beings as “relatives.”
许多“aumakua”既是动物，也是植物——这一传统与拉科塔人将其他生物视为“亲戚”的传统相呼应。
As well as these traditions, the Hawaiian language is essential to the island’s identity.
除了这些传统之外，夏威夷语言对于该岛的身份也至关重要。
But both suffered devastating declines in the 20th century: honu populations plummeted due to overharvesting, while the Hawaiian language almost disappeared under a law that made English the language of instruction in all public and private schools until 1987.
但在 20 世纪，这两种语言都遭受了毁灭性的衰退：霍努族人口因过度采伐而锐减，而根据 1987 年之前将英语作为所有公立和私立学校教学语言的法律，夏威夷语几乎消失。
During this time, students were punished and shamed for speaking Hawaiian.
在此期间，学生因说夏威夷语而受到惩罚和羞辱。
In recent decades, however, both have become central to the revitalization of Hawaiian culture.
然而，近几十年来，两者都成为夏威夷文化复兴的核心。
Honu nesting populations have grown by 5% annually over the last 20 years, while the number of Hawaiian speakers has increased dramatically (from 1,500 in 1980 to 18,000 in 2016) in the same period, thanks to programs and fluency among younger generations.
过去 20 年来，霍努语筑巢种群数量每年增长 5%，而同一时期，由于年轻一代的项目和流利程度，讲夏威夷语的人数急剧增加（从 1980 年的 1,500 人增加到 2016 年的 18,000 人）。
Biodiversity and language represent the intertwined recovery of Hawaii’s natural and cultural heritage, each playing a vital role in reconnecting Hawaiians to their ancestral traditions and identity.
生物多样性和语言代表了夏威夷自然和文化遗产的相互交织的恢复，在夏威夷人与其祖先传统和身份的重新联系方面发挥着至关重要的作用。
On the Japanese island of Okinoerabu, speakers of Shimamuni — a local variety of the Kunigami language that is classified as “definitely endangered” — began a school project in which children gather for a daily beach cleanup while singing in their language and keeping a diary.
在日本冲永良部岛，说岛穆尼语（国头语的一种当地变体，被列为“绝对濒危”）的人开始了一项学校项目，孩子们聚集在一起，每天清理海滩，同时用他们的语言唱歌并写日记。
Aside from being more effective than teaching in a classroom, the use of the language in this way was found to improve the efficiency of communication about environmental issues with elderly islanders, some of whom mistakenly thought litter could degrade on its own.
除了比课堂教学更有效之外，人们发现以这种方式使用语言还可以提高与老年岛民就环境问题进行沟通的效率，其中一些人错误地认为垃圾可以自行降解。
This example shows the risks of losing intergenerational communication, which can have detrimental effects on the entire community.
这个例子显示了失去代际沟通的风险，这可能对整个社区产生不利影响。
Without revitalization efforts, academics estimate language loss could triple within 40 years , with linguists predicting the disappearance of 50 to 90% of the world’s languages by the end of this century, resulting in dire consequences for speaker communities, the scientific community and human heritage.
如果不采取振兴措施，学术界估计语言损失可能会在 40 年内增加两倍，语言学家预测到本世纪末，世界上 50% 至 90% 的语言将消失，给语言社区、科学界和人类遗产造成可怕的后果。
The fact that students with a greater average number of years of schooling are more likely to experience language loss indicates that this rapid decline is rooted in a monolingual mindset.
平均受教育年限较长的学生更有可能经历语言丧失，这一事实表明，这种快速下降的根源在于单语思维。
Though multilingualism is the dominant human experience ( around 60% of the world’s population speaks more than one language), many countries see themselves as monolingual nation-states, where a single language is considered key to preserving a sense of national identity.
尽管多语言是人类的主要经历（世界上大约 60% 的人口说不止一种语言），但许多国家将自己视为单语言民族国家，单一语言被认为是保持民族认同感的关键。
“The idea of not only national but also linguistic unity and uniformity really came with the creation of the nation-state in modern times,” Maffi told me.
马菲告诉我：“民族和语言统一和统一的理念确实是随着现代民族国家的创建而出现的。”
“We need to counter the idea that multilingualism is the enemy.”
“我们需要反驳‘多语言是敌人’的观点。”
For too long, the narrative around languages has been that the dominant language should replace supposedly less “desirable” ones, rather than foster their coexistence.
长期以来，围绕语言的说法一直是主流语言应该取代所谓的不太“受欢迎”的语言，而不是促进它们的共存。
The belief that bilingual children will be confused or struggle with learning multiple languages at once is a misconception that has been widely debunked by research.
人们认为双语儿童会在同时学习多种语言时感到困惑或挣扎，这是一种误解，但已被研究广泛揭穿。
In fact, studies consistently show the numerous cognitive benefits of multilingualism.
事实上，研究一致表明多语言对认知有许多好处。
So if the world’s thousands of “smaller” languages are to survive, a different approach is urgently needed — one that moves away from monolingualism as the norm, and toward a recognition that what makes a language “useful” is not necessarily determined by its number of speakers.
因此，如果世界上数以千计的“小”语言想要生存下去，就迫切需要一种不同的方法——摆脱单语作为常态，并认识到一种语言的“有用”并不一定取决于其使用者的数量。
Languages, as Ralph Waldo Emerson put it in “The Poet,” are “archives of history.” Linguist Nicholas Evans wrote that “they tell us not only about human cognition but also about the rich tapestry of human experiences over millennia.” In losing them we risk losing not just a big chunk of human history, but also the ability to understand different ways of seeing and living in the world.
正如拉尔夫·沃尔多·爱默生在《诗人》中所说，语言是“历史档案”。语言学家尼古拉斯·埃文斯写道：“它们不仅告诉我们人类的认知，还告诉我们几千年来人类丰富的经验。”如果失去它们，我们不仅会失去人类历史的一大部分，还会失去理解世界的不同方式和生活方式的能力。
After pondering the interconnectedness between language and nature, Utsi, the reindeer herder, comes up with another Northern Sámi word that encapsulates how his language is uniquely suited to its environment.
在思考语言与自然之间的相互联系后，驯鹿牧民乌西想出了另一个北萨米语单词，概括了他的语言如何独特地适应其环境。
“ Guorban is a word we use that means ‘overgrazed’ to a point where the lichens will disappear.
“Guorban 是我们使用的一个词，意思是‘过度放牧’到地衣消失的程度。
So basically, you don’t want to guorbadit [overgraze], because then you will destroy that grazing for the next generation,” he told me.
所以基本上，你不想过度放牧，因为那样你就会毁掉下一代的放牧，”他告诉我。
“There are constructions in the Sámi languages that give a precise description of how to use the land, what to do in certain conditions, what reindeer need, and also what not to do, in order to maintain the ecosystems.
“萨米语中有一些结构，准确描述了如何使用土地、在某些条件下该做什么、驯鹿需要什么以及不该做什么，以维护生态系统。
We have terminology that conveys careful use of the resources that we need.”
我们有术语来表达对我们所需资源的谨慎使用。”
For Gorenflo, the factors driving the co-occurrence of linguistic and biological diversity, which were initially puzzling, are now becoming even more evident.
对于戈伦弗洛来说，推动语言和生物多样性同时出现的因素最初令人费解，但现在变得更加明显。
“I see languages as an extension of the cultural system, which itself is part of the broader ecology of the world,” he told me.
“我将语言视为文化系统的延伸，而文化系统本身就是更广泛的世界生态的一部分，”他告诉我。
“So, it’s less and less of a mystery to me, and more about exploring what this ecology looks like.”
“所以，这对我来说越来越不神秘，更多的是探索这个生态是什么样子。”
The preservation of endangered languages is about more than saving words — it could be vital to safeguarding centuries of human knowledge and understanding the systems that sustain us.
保护濒危语言不仅仅是为了拯救文字——它对于保护几个世纪以来的人类知识和理解维持我们生存的系统至关重要。