Dialogue: Languages must not be left to die

IAN LAWTON* says the Budget allocation for Maori broadcasting is a welcome and essential antidote to the language of imperialism.

Former South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu once said: "When the white man first came here he had the Bible and we had the land. Then the white man said to us, 'Come, let us kneel and pray together.' So we knelt and closed our eyes and prayed, and when we opened our eyes again, lo, we had the Bible and he had the land."

Imperialism always spells trouble for the culture and rights of the minority or less powerful groups in society.

And, sadly, Christian mission has too often been at the heart of imperialist conquests. This is a tragedy because Christianity at its best speaks of people connecting with each other and with creation in all its diversity.

The festival called Pentecost, which is celebrated this Sunday in the Church, offers a reminder that the Christian message of love and respect rings loudest when heard in a people's own language and through their own culture.

One of the most significant markers of cultural identity is language. The death of a language is felt starkly because a spoken language leaves no archaeology, unlike a dead person or object. When a language which has never been written down dies, it is as if it never existed.

Imperialism or colonialism have always been at the heart of the murder of languages. The underlying reason for this sabotage? The more coherent the society is, the easier it is to control. Take away a people's language, and they are robbed of the ability to express unique cultural concepts.

This is a gross injustice, and being left with a Bible is small comfort.

Languages have come and gone throughout the ages, yet at this time in history we are seeing the ravaging of language and culture as never before.

There are, by most estimates 6000 languages in the world. Of these, it is said that half will die in the next century. This is language extinction on a massive scale.

With the death of a language, so the very culture it expresses is under threat. Why should we care? For the same reason that we care when a plant or animal becomes extinct - because it reduces the diversity of our planet.

There is a deep-seated myth that the existence of many languages is a curse rather than a blessing. You may have heard the expression "the curse of Babel." Yet a closer look at the Bible suggests that speaking one language was a human move aiming at centralising power and culture.

The building of the tower of Babel was a Babylonian imperial project hell-bent on consolidating power in an urban centre through the use of Hebrew slaves.

The text makes clear that the divine counterplan was to reconstruct diversity through the confusion or proliferation of languages and the scattering of colonisers to the ends of the Earth. You might even say that the existence of many languages was a divine cure to a human problem. It was never a curse. So the story goes.

Then if you jump 2500 years ahead to the occupied centre of Jerusalem, you encounter what is commonly in the Church called Pentecost. The participants came from a variety of places. Yet here they would speak only Greek, the lingua franca of the Roman Empire.

Once again imperialism is at work through the control of language. Yet here again there is a divine counterstrategy, and there are two miracles in the story of Pentecost: the miracle of many languages spoken; and the miracle of many people hearing the message in their own language.

Pentecost speaks about the redistribution of cultural power through language. It is a story, and probably nothing more than a story, concerning the revitalisation of language. Having recently moved from Australia, I know this is an issue there.

The survival of indigenous languages in schools and bilingual education in Northern Territory schools are issues being debated, as they should be.

Now I have arrived to work in a Church which has established a three-tikanga organisational and constitutional structure, yet espouses bicultural partnership at a local parish level.

I affirm the directions this Church has taken, yet struggle as a new player to know how it always works in practice. The use of Maori in Pakeha church services is a wonderful reflection of Christian values, and should be explored further.

It is a step the Australian Church has not made in partnership with Aboriginal people.

What does cultural diversity mean in our context?

How significant is broadcasting in revitalising language and cultural uniqueness?

What does the Budget allocation towards Maori broadcasting of $48 million over four years mean for cultural distinctiveness?

Surely it is a move which is to be affirmed as an expression and step towards cultural understanding, empathy and distinctiveness.

I have heard the case presented that fewer than 2 per cent of the population speak fluent Maori. Yet surely this is the best argument for Maori broadcasting.

I would expect that many social issues grow out of the theft of a culture.

It is, therefore, not necessarily logical to place funding for language revitalisation alongside the need for health, education and employment funding, and claim that the former is at the expense of the latter. They are intimately related.

What is the Pentecost message for all the Earth's citizens, regardless of religious beliefs? It is about a nation in spectacular diversity gathering as one and sharing our different visions for the common good.

* The Rev Ian Lawton is vicar of St Matthew-in-the-City, Auckland.