The Mexican philosopher and historian Miguel León Portilla states that "languages are what distinguishes us from other living beings," especially when languages allow us to go beyond the present time, providing us with memory and giving us the possibility of imagining and thinking about the future. Languages project our desires beyond an immediate time and turn them into the hope of a different tomorrow, as the Italian-American linguist Mario Pei reminds us.
That is why when tongues die, humanity, as a whole, becomes impoverished. But, when the language with which one has grown dies, it is even more terrible since it becomes almost impossible to place oneself well in the world again. As language becomes unavailable, we begin to develop the notion of not having a voice of our own. "Those who lose their mother tongue become lost," asserts León Portilla, because they lack the references created during childhood: the words, the concepts, the worldview, and the culture to which they belong because the language "is the index and inventory of the culture itself." That is why it is essential to treasure all of our tongues. They are our great human legacy.
La Clase de Español
