Thank you Paul.

I'll now try to practice.

We're thinking of a trip to NZ next year.

Hi Foxy,

We will be in NZ from next Tuesday for a couple of weeks. Our first trip since 2019. Covid put restrictions on travel, Catch up with whanau (extended family), wife has two sisters and one brother up north, so a catch up with them is absolutely necessary, as is visiting several urupa (cemetery) to pay respects to those passed. The rest is a holiday in the form of a country music festival at the isolated community of Opononi, only about 600 people, yes the wife has relos living there as well, then a wedding down south in Hamilton. Any luck, we'll get out to the Waipoua Forest and visit the god Tane Mahuta, who dwells within a 2,000 year old giant kauri tree, about 30 minutes walk into the forest. Nothing like meeting a real life living god. Although the wife is a practising Christian, she always says a little prayer to Tangaroa for safe travel, and to Ranginui (Sky Father) for protection whilst away, before the aeroplane takes off. She says it all helps, I don't know.

Dear Paul,

My gran was a Russian Orthodox Christian. Yet
whenever there was a violent storm and it thundered.
She'd walk around the house sprinkling holy water
in each room. She also believed it helped.

"Rarity is the precursor to extinction."
Darwin

People from minority languages usually want their children to learn the metropolitan language, or English, rather than be painted into a corner by only knowing their traditional language, or learning it at the sacrifice of more valuable skills.

Such languages can only be kept alive by government funding of what is ultimately a vain exercise - Canute-like thrashing at the waves.

With someone else's money of course. Take that out of the equation, and the value of the attempt somehow magically disappears.

Even where the state does fund attempts to keep moribund languages alive - such as in Ireland, Wales, and Bali - they die anyway.

It takes time, effort, commitment and desire to learn any language. Why would anyone want to learn the language of a minority that they're not going to be able to use in life?

Extinction and speciation are part of evolution, and two sides of the same coin. While we are witnessing old languages die out, we are also witnessing the cross-fertilisation, hybridisation, and creation of new languages from existing ones, especially English.

Darwin, btw, met a parrot in South America that was the last living being that spoke a word of a language extinct of human speech.

A policy for the palliative care of a moribund language should be called Darwin's Parrot.

Paulnazi,

I assume that you are going to visit your ex-neighbour and chum Brendon Tarrant that you miss so much?

But you're making assumptions without all
the facts, and that's not a sign of intelligence.
Poor thing - you're obviously missing Paul.
Need someone to talk to?