Dying Languages

In June, 2005, Elizabeth Kolbert (writing in the The New Yorker) poignantly described an emerging crisis in world langauges. Focusing on Eyak, Kolbert called attention to the phenomenon fof language extinction adn described efforts being made to preserve languages that are being erased adn forgotten as populations migrate, assimilate, or disappear into the fog of mass communication.

I was reminded of this sad story when I saw images of remarkable paintings by Moroccan-born artist Hamid Kachmar, on view at Boston University's Sherman Gallery. Here's a passage from the gallery's description of the show:

In Reviving the Ancient Tifinagh Script, Kachmar renders the ancient Amazigh script, Tifinagh, into textual and visual compositions that represent a struggle for identity, cultural survival, and self-conception. For centuries, the Tifinagh script has been politically suppressed; painted out of Amazigh people’s collective consciousness. For Hamid and many other cultural activists of his generation, Tifinagh represents not just the ancient script of a still widely spoken indigenous language, but also a symbol of the struggle for cultural survival.

a painting by Hamid Kachmar