From an article on the approaching extinction of half of the world's 6,000+ languages currently spoken: "In peril is not just knowledge but also the importance of diversity and the beauty of grammar. They will tell you that every language has its own unique theology and philosophy buried in its very sinews..." 'Yaghan' is a language spoken by only two speakers in southern Chile. The author spoke to one of them:
She was a kind old woman whose Yaghan, according to Aguilera, was authentic. Our conversation was brief and brittle. When I asked Emelinda what could be done to keep Yaghan alive, she said she was already doing it, as if a formal program were under way.
''I talk to myself in Yaghan,'' Emelinda explained in Spanish. ''When I hang up my clothes outside, I say the words in Yaghan. Inside the house, I talk in Yaghan all day long.'' I asked her if she ever had a conversation with the only other person in the world who could easily understand her, Cristina Calderón, the official ''last speaker'' of Yaghan.
''No,'' Emelinda said impatiently, as if I'd brought up a sore topic. ''The two of us don't talk.''
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