The mystery of mass extinction.

Over a week ago, Tiarnan, 6, peered up at me, with questioning eyes, as we waited for his school bus, to take him to school in the morning.

“Daddy, why did all the dinosaurs die, but other animals are still alive?”

He had a point.

I then explained to him how many of today’s animals did not exist at the time of the dinosaurs. I explained that they had evolved since then and did not, therefore, have a chance to die in the extinction event that killed the dinosaurs.

He didn’t comment on my answer, he just listened, quietly.

I found his question impressive in a way. It shows that he is not just acquiring facts, but considering the “whys” of how they could have become, in the first place. It was clear to him, that not all animals had been treated the same way, it seemed...some lived and many had died. Therefore, he saw the fact that there were animals alive today, as a mystery in itself. That is an interesting way to turn around the question of mass extinction – he was not asking, “Why had the dinosaurs died?”, he was, in fact, asking: “Why had all these other animals not died?” That is quite a sophisticated way to reconsider the facts.

I rather like my mornings sending Tiarnan to school, even though it is very early. I like them because he is very alert and filled with questions. He likes to probe the mysteries of the world, through me, by posing questions whilst we wait for the bus. Some of them are scientific in flavour and answer – and some of them philosophical. Whichever it is, I am pleased to hear him, for by asking questions, of me, he is answering one of my own: “What is in my son’s head?” It is ever pleasing to find out. So, carry on questioning, Tiarnan!

Posted by Valentine Cawley.

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The fall of the tower of Babel.

There are, according to UNESCO over 6,900 living languages today. Unfortunately, however, 2,500 of them are endangered. Both numbers surprised me, and the latter number, shocked me.

A language is more than a set of sounds. It is a way of seeing the world, a way of understanding the world, it is a codification of the world. Each language is a unique perspective. That 2,500 languages should be in danger of being lost, is terribly tragic. If unrecorded, each loss of a language is a permanent loss of a human perspective, of a world view that will never be, again. Each language is also part of the puzzle of how language came to be, to spread and to become so diverse. All languages are intertwined in one complex "evolutionary" whole. To lose one part of the puzzle is to make the whole forever more difficult to understand: it is to impoverish our understanding of what it is to be human.

Many languages are near their end, preserved in the minds of only a few people. One hundred and ninety-nine languages are spoken only by fewer than a dozen people. These include Wichita, spoken by just ten people in Oklahoma and Lengilu, spoken by only four people, in Indonesia. The deaths of a few people, will push these languages to extinction.

One hundred and seventy-eight other languages are spoken by between ten and one hundred and fifty people. Though somewhat safer, it wouldn't take much to extinguish these tongues either. Indeed, the last three generations of mankind has seen the loss of over two hundred languages - including Manx (from the Isle of Man) in 1974.

India stands to lose one hundred and ninety six languages; America, one hundred and ninety two languages and Indonesia, one hundred and forty seven languages.

With the death of the last speaker of these tongues, so too, dies the language, probably forever.

I do not know, as I write, whether efforts are being made to preserve these languages. If not, there should be. Linguists should be sitting down with these last speakers of exotic tongues and recording, in as exquisite detail as possible, each of these languages before they are lost. In some ways, the task is as urgent and as important as the preservation of species - for the loss of a language is as irreplaceable as the loss of a species.

I feel a certain ambivalence about this situation, for I know one cause of it: the spreading of global languages. I love English, and was born into it - but I would not that English bestrode the world and pushed every other language to extinction. That would be too sad. For though I appreciate English for what it is, I also appreciate that there is great beauty in all the languages I have never heard and never known - each is a world of its own and each deserving of conservation.

Philosophically I like diversity - in people, in ideas, in things. I am, actually, very uncomfortable with conformity. What greater conformity could there be than that all spoke one language? It is a hideous thought and I hope it never happens. I would like the world to continue to be a diverse place, with diverse people, thinking diverse thoughts and living in diverse ways. One of these important sources of diversity is the languages they speak. I don't want a world reduced to Mandarin, English, Spanish, French, Japanese and Arabic. That would be awful.

So, I would urge the nations of the world, to appoint sufficient linguists to capture the essence of every language now living, so that none is fully lost, when its last speaker passes on. As for the speakers of exotic tongues: why not teach it to others? Teach it to linguists if no-one else will listen...or better still, have a child, and speak to it in the crib, with the almost dead tongue you speak, so that one more person might live, to pass it on.

I do not want to see a future in which all Man's great diversity has been lost. All should be conserved...for we are all diminished by the loss of each type of diversity. When a language falls silent, Man has forgotten one way to speak about the world. In a sense, one whole world dies with each dead tongue.

Let not Babel fall, but let the world babble on, and be rich in its diversity.

(If you would like to learn more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, a scientific child prodigy, aged eight years and seven months, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, five years exactly, and Tiarnan, twenty-eight months, please go to: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2006/10/scientific-child-prodigy-guide.html I also write of gifted education, IQ, intelligence, the Irish, the Malays, Singapore, College, University, Chemistry, Science, genetics, left-handedness, precocity, child prodigy, child genius, baby genius, adult genius, savant, wunderkind, wonderkind, genio, гений ребенок prodigy, genie, μεγαλοφυία θαύμα παιδιών, bambino, kind.

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