In the May 29-June 3 2009 The Pacific Northwest Inlander there was an article called “Saving Salish.” It’s the language (well actually the name of the group of languages) native to my relations.

The excerpt reads:

Salish isn’t just a language of words and grammar. It’s a bridge between generations – a link to culture and identity – and for the Kalispel, it’s dangerously close to being lost forever.

I am used to hearing Salish spoken at ritual events, and I know some of the people involved in the attempt to rescue the language at the Spokane. But here in my apartment in Vancouver, reading the Inlander, the thing that really gets to me is imagining losing my ability to read Shakespeare or Chaucer or any of the other seminal writers that express what it is to be who we are as English speakers.

Imagine that. Imagine losing the ability to reach out into our past, losing Shakespeare. Arguably, we would lose ourselves. To whom would we then belong?