The last speakers of a dying language

Oh what a tragic loss of life, the village elders all killed by a rampaging elephant. You know what this means, Dondo, we two are the sole surviving speakers of the language.

The continuity of our tongue, the survival of our culture, our heritage, it lies in our hands. It is up to use to share the language with the world Dondo, to do everything in our power to see that it doesn’t die: to teach, to procreate, to leave the greatest possible legacy of language behind us.

“I speaka de language.”

“Yes Dondo, you’ve improved immensely. You are fluent enough now to rise to the challenge of ensuring the language lives on. For it’s more than just words, language captures the very essence of our village’s life. We have words for things that other languages have overlooked, expressions steeped in our way of life. ‘He who is last to tickle the goat is last to raise a laugh’.

No other language has that expression. If we die without passing our language on, all that dies with us. For our society’s history can’t be properly relayed in any other tongue.

Of course, my own ignorance shames me. There are so many words that I simply never bothered to learn. There are the words my uncle used which I never learnt the meaning of, because we deemed his tongue ‘too regional’. And some of the technical terms used by the elephant hiders, those are already lost to the world.  Gone to the elephant hiders’ graveyard, so to speak.

“I speaka da language.”

“Very good, Dondo. You above anyone understand the importance of teaching the language. For teaching the language is what we must do. It’s not too late for us to marry, Dondo, we must find wives and have many children, teach them every word we know. We hold the legacy of linguistic life for future generations.

Oh Dondo, the burden is on us now, to see that the language lives on. Are you up to it? Can you meet this impossible challenge?

“Ch-a-lenge. Yes, I meet challenge. I shake challenge by the hand and say ‘hello challenge, how do you does.”

Good Dondo, it is so wonderful to have you, someone I can converse with in the old tongue. Ah, pain, what is this pain. Oh, no, my heart. It’s the stress of keeping the language alive Dondo, it’s too much for me. I am dying Dondo. It is up to you now, and you alone. Keep the language alive.

“You dies? Fear never. I am language liver. I keepy up. For you Grondip, my babies, my wives, my generations, I will, how you say, teachy them all.”