"Talking Hands" by Margalit Fox

In the introduction Fox is explaining her research trip to an isolated Middle Eastern village. The villagers in this isolated village Al- Sayyid speak unusual language spoken only there and which has never been documented before. Four linguists have been doing research for couple of years and they have been documenting this extraordinary language. Before the linguists started their research they had to gain the trust of the villagers, as well they had to protect their privacy. Fox was the first journalist that was allowed to visit this village, but she wasn’t allowed to interview any of the villagers. She was permitted to visit the village, but she had to show her whole manuscript to the linguists. The history and the life that are described in her book are based on her own observations and on the interviews with the members of the research team. To keep the privacy of this village in her book Fox has changed the names of every villager; also she has disguised the exact location of the village.
In the first chapter “In the village of the deaf” from the book Fox describes the house at the edge of the village, the owner of the house and his family. The man and his family are called Bedouins; they are middle class, they own automobiles and computers, but the remarkable thing about them is their unusual language, spoken only in their village. Fox explains that for the last seventy years the inherited deafness has been passed down from one generation to the next. In the village there are around 3,500 residents and about 150 are deaf. Many of the hearing residents can speak the sign language. Then Fox talks about the second time that the entire team goes to the Al- Sayyid village and collects data. On their first visit to the village they videotaped the villagers telling stories in sign. Then Fox explains how over the years many of Al- Sayyid deaf children go to special classes for deaf in other towns, where they learn the Israeli Sign language. This language is very different from the Al- Sayyid Bedouin Sign Language. This language as the other languages that has very few speakers can very easily die. I think that when the older Bedouin signers die and their children use the Israeli Sign language instead of their own, then this unique language will change or maybe die.

NY Times

United States is the most multicultural country and New York City is known as home to one of the most ethnically diverse population. In this article are mentioned the spoken languages in New York City, also the dying languages. Professor Daniel Kaufman started the project “endangered language alliance” to identify and record dying languages. Some of the languages found in New York City are Vlaski, Mamuju, Aramaik, Chaldik, Mandaik, Bukhari, Chamorro, Irish Gaelic, Kashubian, indigenous Mexican languages, Pennsylvania Dutch, Romany and Yiddish. When the language is not carried on to the next generations, then the language dies and the culture gets lost through the decades. From this article I learned that the Vlaski language is dying which I really didn’t realize that since my mother speaks that language. I know that the language is very important to every person because knowing a specific language helps families and relatives connect to each others.