The Linguists
How can language empower or oppress people? The documentary 'The Linguists' explores disappearing languages throughout the world. They travel to Siberia, India and Bolivia to learn about fading languages that once use to be. In Siberia, they discover the language Chulym, in India the language Sora and in Bolivia the language Kallawaya. When watching the documentary, I found that languages can both oppress and empower individuals and groups of people. The people who considered themselves more powerful were the people who spoke the dominant language of the area. An example of this would be from the Siberian section of the video. The Russians oppressed the Siberians who spoke Chulym as they considered this a "gutter language" and looked down upon it. They Russified the areas and people who spoke Chulym which was a factor of why Chulym started to die out. Another example of how language can empower and oppress people would be the people who spoke Sora. They all came fr...