The Only Speaker of his Tongue by David Malouf

David Malouf's "The Only Speaker of his Tongue" illustrates perfectly the direct importance of preservation of languages and the responsibility that one may hold to preserving such a thing. Beautiful in its captivating imagery, the statement that resonated with me would be, "The first landscape here is dead. It dies in this mans eyes as his tongue licks the edge of the horizon, before it has quite dried up in his mouth. There is a new one that others are making."

Although not explicit, Malouf captured my attention to this statement, shouting numerous answers. One being which that the landscape he refers to might be his land or culture and how it is dying, or being torn apart. The second being, that the language in fact is what does in the mans eyes, as he sees throughout history and his lifetime its rarity and how it has been almost completely abolished. Malouf also says that his tongue of which speaks the language is trying to grasp for more people to say at as if he is struggling to get nourishment from the food he had already finished. It then "dries up in his mouth" as in slowly being removed and eventually instinct for decades. HE also uses others as if the people that we now conform to are doing something negative by taking their language, as if power of the people has been completely destroyed.

I can admit that I am not a victim of endangered languages and I am quite proud to regard myself as a fluent person in english. Although this may seem to be very arrogant, because this is my only language I can consider myself to be part of a community rather than to conform as many have did in the last generations. A beautiful excerpt that hides the reality of the past,present and future, Malouf brilliantly illustrates the dying languages and how society feels the need to conform to the international language that is today, English.