Bringhurst: Languages are Lifeforms too

"There are at least 82 indigenous languages in Cascadia and those could be added as a layer to David McCloskey’s award-winning map of the bioregion [Cascadia]. They belong on the map because “languages are life-forms too, just like the forests and the grasslands. They are living things. They are mortal. They die. They don’t last forever. They grow up, they change, they live, under good conditions, very long lives, thousands of years, but they don’t last forever. They are not static. So even the language map would change.” Robert Bringhurst

If there is one thing you read about literature this year it should be this. It should shake our bones and reform our dreams.

For too long we have been subsumed under the human resource category worshiping the dollar (or its power). But here is a new language, or an old language that may save our lives if we return to it.