August
21
/ 2014
By Tara MacIsaac, Epoch Times Language is said to be the key to understanding a culture—the medium by which the arts and ideas of a people have been passed down over generations. Many languages are dying in the modern world, and linguists strive to mine and save the cultural gems embedded therein. Some of these languages prove particularly precious for their rarity. “Linguistic isolates” are languages that have no connection to any known language. Some, such as Korean, are spoken by large swaths of people; some, such as Kusunda in the Himalayas, are currently spoken by only about 7-8 people; some, such as the Indus script, haven’t been spoken for thousands of years. Did these languages spring up on their
