The inroad of uncontrolled, unmonitored invasive alien species of plants and fish had brought changes in the local vocabulary, too. For example, youths of today would be more familiar with the introduced invasive fish Puklaobi (common carp, Cyprinus carpio) better than the native fish Nganap (Acantophthalmus pangia) since the carp is commonly available everywhere while the Nganap literally had disappeared from Manipur’s wetlands
By Salam Rajesh
Reading Paris-based journalist Julia Webster Ayuso’s article “The Languages Lost to Climate Change”, written for the Noema Magazine in January earlier this year, the reflection sounded true in Manipur’s context where the passage of time had brought changes in the spoken vocabulary locally aligned with the changing character of the natural environment in the State.
Quoting Sami elder Lars Miguel Utsi, Julia reflects on the wisdom of the Sami leader when he says, “When you talk to someone older today, they have a richer language. They have more words about nature, about formations in nature, animals and reindeer especially”. The Sami people in northern Sweden are reportedly the only Indigenous group in Europe.
Scientists and linguists have discovered a striking connection between the world’s biodiversity and its languages, writes Julia, emphasizing that areas rich in biological diversity tend to be rich in linguistic diversity.
At the same time, the high-diversity areas are often at the front lines of the climate crisis, and where plant and animal species are disappearing fast enough, languages, dialects and unique expressions often follow a similar pattern of decline, she observed.
The Arctic may not be an obvious biodiversity hotspot, like the Brazilian Amazon or Tanzania’s coastal forests, but it plays a critical role in regulating and stabilizing the Earth’s climate and supporting life on the planet. Scientists often say that “what happens in the Arctic does not stay in the Arctic,” and any disruption to its habitat has far-reaching consequences for humanity. Arctic’s glacial melts are accounted for sea surface level rise globally, threatening submergence of low-lying coastal nations while giving rise to weather anomalies.
Synthesizing Julia’s reference to the loss of language usages for the Sami people as the biodiversity declined due to the impact of climate change, obvious of the glacial melts and changing weather patterns and climatic conditions in the Arctic, the reference has a parallel in the obvious changes observed in the usage of language, and vocabulary, back home with the changing character in the natural environment, again obviously influenced by anthropogenic activities.
The youths of today in Manipur know less of the names and types of the flora and fauna in the natural environment, similarly as Utsi says that the Sami elders have a richer language than what is known by the younger generation of the present time, as words and meanings of things get lost with time gradually with the loss in the biological diversity influenced by changing climatic conditions, and physical modifications in the natural landscapes.
For instance, how many of the younger population in Manipur today would recollect using the word ‘Taothabi’ in their everyday usage, so much as this word for a wild variety of rice is no longer in vogue with the disappearance of the plant from sight literally. Introduced high-yield variety of rice had superseded the native species and as the saying goes “out of sight, out of mind”, this word had lost significance with the population of today.
The word ‘Wainu’ is a general term for cranes, often embedded in literature. The existence of the word implies that cranes frequented the wetlands in Manipur in a time past. With changing character in the natural environment, and with more human presence encroached upon the wetlands, somehow the long-distance flying migratory bird is no longer seen in these parts. And, consequently, the usage of the word had gradually slipped from the people’s mind and their everyday usage.
Manipur’s climatic condition was described as “salubrious” in a time past. With temperature soaring around 40 degrees Celsius in the present time, and more in few pockets recently, as compared to the average fluctuation around 30 degrees Celsius less than four decades back, things are no longer conducive to be referred to as ‘salubrious’.
The inroad of uncontrolled, unmonitored invasive alien species of plants and fish had brought changes in the local vocabulary, too. For example, youths of today would be more familiar with the introduced invasive fish Puklaobi (common carp, Cyprinus carpio) better than the native fish Nganap (Acantophthalmus pangia) since the carp is commonly available everywhere while the Nganap literally had disappeared from Manipur’s wetlands.
Languages are repositories of wisdom passed down through generations, and often that wisdom is ecological, writes Julia. Elaborating on the richness of languages, she writes that in western Canada and the United States, phrases in Indigenous languages specifically indicate when wild plants should be harvested.
Similarly, Indigenous Australians define seasons based on signals like the flowering native trees, which in turn inform their fire management techniques to control wildfires. Traditional Sami calendars have 13 months based on plants and animal activity of a particular time of year, such as miessemánnu (reindeer calf month) and borgemánnu (reindeer-coat-shifting month).
This richness in the spoken language is observed in the Manipuri language, too, like in the Meiteilon language spoken by the Meiteis, and the other various ethnic language spoken by the different ethnicities inhabiting in the State. This richness develops from the rich diversity in biological life forms that find home in a truly biodiverse region classed as a global biodiversity hotspot (that is, the Indo-Burma Biodiversity Hotspot).
The usage of language filters along the way, that is, the language gets diversified with the entry of new forms of plants and animals, or either with the gradual disappearance of species that the Indigenous population were familiar with in the bygone past, and in the recent past. So, when the local population gradually foregoes using the term ‘wainu-chara’ for the variety of wild rice that the locals harvested earlier but which is no longer available in the present times, the Manipuri vocabulary is poorer by one terminology.
This would define the gradual loss of the biocultural property of the natives, where the richness of language gradually diminishes with the changes in the natural environment in which the natives thrive. This, as Julia focuses, comes with a pang when the decline in species is accentuated with the changing climatic conditions as impacted by the three planetary crises – global warming, climate change and extreme weather events.
When species disappear the usage associated with that species fades out silently, becoming a thing of the past. In a time scale of fifty to a hundred years when species are lost, the richness in a people’s spoken language gradually dims, losing much of its biocultural values. In the present-day context, when climate change deliberation becomes truly concentrated on its long-term impacts, it is indeed a concern for the indigenes to safeguard their biocultural properties and values particularly linked to nature’s relationship with humans.