What is your native language?

I’m a native English speaker. (American Midwest with a bit of Appalachia thrown in.)

Dying languages and cultures bother me. Different languages, cultures and history make the world interesting. It’s one of the main reasons people like to travel.

Here in the Americas there are over a thousand spoken languages, most of which are dying out. The largest number of native speakers are in South America. Navajo is the most spoken native language north of the US-Mexican border, with close to 200,00 speakers.

I went to college in a place with a lot of Navajo speakers. It’s an interesting language to listen to. The natives in the Americas separated from Eurasia so long ago, that they have a very distinct language. What stood out to me was the slow speech, and distinct syllables. They did not run their words and syllable together like us English speakers.

Here are a couple of videos on the language. In this first video, notice the change in cadence when he switches between English and Navajo.

There are dying languages, but there are also new languages being created. Louisiana Creole is an example. It’s a mix of French, Spanish, English, Native American, and Native African languages. It became a distinct language, but now it’s dying out also.

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