Language death: what are your thoughts?

[Joseph41]

As we all know, language is fluid. But when a story like this is published, it really makes you think. How closely are language and identity linked? What are your thoughts?

Last fluent Ngandi speaker works to pass on endangered Indigenous language

In the remote Northern Territory community of Ngukurr, the endangered Ngandi language is being passed on to a younger generation by its last fluent speaker.

Grant Mathumba Thompson did not have a chance to learn Ngandi growing up, despite it being the language of his mother and grandparents.

His great aunt Cherry Wulumirr Daniels has started teaching him Ngandi and other traditional languages, so they can run classes at the local school.

"Knowing, learning the languages has saved my life in a way I couldn't think of," he said.

"It's given me responsibility. It's given me so much to look forward to."

More here: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-04-16/future-of-endangered-ngandi-language-rests-with-youth/8446414

[geminii]

This is really sad.

I'm Indian, and my family speak Kannada. I can speak it well enough to have basic conversations but my younger siblings can barely speak a word of it. It's not like Kannada itself is dying out, but it is in my family. I wish I could have taken Kannada lessons or spoken it regularly past starting school so that I would have a wider vocabulary. English isn't even my first language; I spoke only Kannada up until the time I started preschool, which was when I was four years old.
When I get older I'm going to speak to my children in Kannada so they'll at least have a chance at learning the language, more so than I did.

In terms of Aboriginal languages, I think it's really upsetting that slowly, over the years, the native people of Australia are losing the old ways of culture and communication. I wish we were more like New Zealand - more accepting of Aboriginals in the earlier stages, and teaching Aboriginal languages at schools, just like Maori is taught in many NZ schools.

[vox nihili]

As we all know, language is fluid. But when a story like this is published, it really makes you think. How closely are language and identity linked? What are your thoughts?

Last fluent Ngandi speaker works to pass on endangered Indigenous language
More here: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-04-16/future-of-endangered-ngandi-language-rests-with-youth/8446414

Whenever I hear stories like this, I like to think about what it'd be like if I were the last English speaker. How would I deal with trying to teach a new generation English? How could I possibly share what I know, let alone all the variation and complexity of this language?

[illuminati_confirmed]

I'd say language is linked very closely to identity, but being the last speaker of a language would be the worst, because you would have the responsibility of either codifying the language to make it easier to teach, finding people willing to learn and remember the language for the next generation or just let it die out. This might even change the identity of the speaker, knowing that they are the last one.