Best Friend Forever

Recently my wife & I were at a McDonald for a bite. Seated in next table were a group of four who seem as a family - parents with their 2 kids. The lady bought the meal while the rest were using their personal gadgets unspoken to each other. She bought the meal, took out her own gadget and all four ate in silence as isolated silos. They left in silence without uttering a word to each other. We were wondering where are the lovely conversations within family & between friends gone.

Are there no common topics for discussion, is this the evolution of alpha man or development of technology making us communicate less? Family meals, pantry talks, coffee talks, phone conversations are reducing and making relationships malnourished. We humans are evolving into a direction under utilizing the gift of speech.

Gadgets make communications that are physical & tonal drift into lifeless texts. They provide companionship without questioning. Humans like less confrontation and gadgets do not confront at all making them the BFF (best friend forever). We have come this far is because of challenges that were imposed on us by confrontation & our intriguing nature. If communication becomes one way, we challenge ourselves less and our brains unused become corroded. This leads to less development & growth also causing few of our languages being pushed to extinction.

Gadgets becoming as our BFF is worrying and it is for the existing generations to nourish relationships by conversing more to each other, preserve the gift of speech that no other living thing in earth has.

Language Extinction with Technology Development

A Scottish Gaelic old saying goes "He who loses his language loses his world." Mother tongue is identity to promulgate our origins. Origination gives dignity. Sense of togetherness develops while conversing in our language. Nelson Mandela said "If you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his head. If you talk to him in his language, that goes to his heart." 

Around 7000 languages are spoken world wide by the over 7 billion people. Out of this 12 languages are most widely spoken (Mandarin Chinese, English, Spanish, Hindi, Arabic, Bengali, Russian, Portuguese, Japanese, German and French) while close to 2500 languages are in brink of extinction. There are two aspects which are key to this trend, Technology and Individuals.

Global landscape is flatter and internet makes distance no longer, longer. Information is button press in almost all languages. Sub-title, translations are available in widely spoken languages. This increases viewership showing it is a commercialized world rather than a responsible world. Subtitles for native programs make younger generation to listen less of their language and read sub-titles, in turn speaking less. If willing media could make this reverse by not looking into only on commercial aspect but a mean to protect languages as part of their corporate social responsibility. After all if there is no language there is no viewership.

Individuals might survive speaking other languages but it gives a suffocated feeling when we seldom speak our own language. Pride is flashed on the face when we speak our language while a pseudo smile can be seen on those who don't. Those who give up speaking their language and take pride in foreign languages are those who lose their integrity and world. They live in an aura of illusion.Let us talk to hearts and not to be just understood. This has to be conveyed to younger generations so they value & take pride in who they are. 

Technology development could be used in better ways for saving languages thereby help in saving cultures, history that we leave after we are long gone. Legacies are to be created not destroyed.