Climate change is erasing crucial Indigenous languages

A recent report highlights how climate change is accelerating the loss of Indigenous languages, which hold vital ecological knowledge.

Kiley Price reports for Inside Climate News.

In short:

• Indigenous languages, which encompass crucial environmental knowledge, are disappearing due to climate-induced migrations and environmental changes.
• Extreme weather and rising sea levels are forcing Indigenous communities to abandon their homelands, taking their languages with them.
• Efforts are underway to document and preserve these languages, as they offer unique insights into environmental conservation, but hampered by climate impacts and historical colonialism.

Key quote:

"Indigenous languages contain inventories of species, classification systems, etiological narratives, and, above all, ways of managing diversity, a fundamental technology for the preservation and biorestoration of the environment."

— Altaci Corrêa Rubim/Tataiya Kokama, University of Brasília

Why this matters:

The loss of Indigenous languages means losing critical environmental knowledge that can aid in combating climate change. Read more: Feeling “invisible”: How language barriers worsen environmental injustice.