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Yup, there's an entire field within metahistory concerning how entire peoples are essentially erased from historical records due to conquest and/or genocide. It

Yup, there's an entire field within metahistory concerning how entire peoples are essentially erased from historical records due to conquest and/or genocide. It's a formalization of the famous addage, "history books are written by the winners." Hayden White's metahistorical perspectives on how "narratives" shape history were really eye opening for me.

sterlind 6y ago
I think we should fight to preserve what cultures, people and languages we have left. The Ainu language is nearly extinct, and it represents an entirely separate language family from Japanese for example. Anthropology (especially linguistics too) is a jigsaw puzzle for which we're losing pieces every day. Plus it feels right to try to save them.
- whymauri 6y ago
  100% agree - my mom's family is Wayuu and we speak a dying language. I didn't grow up in the same ancestral lands my grandmother did, but I do try to retain my very basic grasp of the language. And I will encourage my kids to learn the basics. It's too sad to think of the finality of culture, but this is the least I can do. I think it's great that some Ainu are relearning the language - it's such a strong cultural bond.
  - sterlind 6y ago
    It's really good that you encourage your kids to learn! Languages carry so much culture, so assimilation programs in the US and Canada focused on breaking the teaching cycle of native languages to force cultural assimilation. I'm white but I work with a Coast Salish language that the tribes are trying to bring back from extinction. Indian children were forced into boarding schools and beaten if they didn't speak English, so a generation grew up without learning and the last L1 speaker died a decade ago. So much was lost, but linguists and elders wrote down enough that revival is possible. It will take hard work and determination for entire tribes though, so it may never recover except in ceremonial usage.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- tathougies 6y ago
  I don't. As a member of a small ethnic group myself, I really don't understand why. Whatever it was that we had to give to the world has been given. None of us have been treated cruelly for being of a certain race (for the most part). We just chose to move away, marry others (because we're not race purists, like many 'indigineous' activists, I suppose?), raise our children, and be happy. Not every society has produced things of equal value, and it's not particularly offensive to notice that.
- diffrinse 6y ago
  There are no languages we know of related to Japanese
  - Mediterraneo10 6y ago
    This is not quite true. That some extinct languages of the Korean peninsula were related to Japanese on the basis of toponymy, is now nearly universally agreed on among linguists, whether they accept the Altaic hypothesis (or the recent "Transeurasian" rebranding of it) or reject the Altaic hypothesis.
    - diffrinse 6y ago
      Did I really have to say no living languages?
      - Mediterraneo10 6y ago
        The work on Korean toponymy is recent enough (and still ongoing) that it is missing in many older standard references for the history of Japanese. So, in a discussion like this, if a person mentions that the Japonic family is a language isolate, then it is helpful to add for readers less familiar with this subject that it isn’t completely isolated.
foobar_ 6y ago
I've been watching Meerkat Manor recently. More than monkeys I feel we resemble meerkats. It was exactly like watching people. At the bottom of it, it boils down to family vs family, which is tribe vs tribe in larger units fighting over rights to exploit a territory.
barry-cotter 6y ago
History is written by those who care enough to write history. For over a 100 years historiography of the US Civil War was dominated by Southerners and there are plenty of other examples of political losers being most influential in historical memory. Machiavelli ensured Cesar Borgia will live forever by his writing and both of them lost. Sima Qian was castrated. https://scholars-stage.blogspot.com/2016/11/history-is-written-by-losers.html?m=1 https://scholars-stage.blogspot.com/2016/11/history-is-writt... > To restate Sima Qian’s experience in less emotional terms: because he was principled enough to contradict the emperor in the presence of his court, Sima Qian was sentenced to castration. This was a death sentence—any self-respecting man of his day would commit suicide before submitting to the procedure. Everyone expected Sima Qian to do so. But in the end Sima Qian decided to accept the punishment and live the rest of his life in shame, because if he did not he would never finish the history he had started. > Not every historian has the balls to a challenge despot face-to-face. For despotic Wudi was—the castration of Sima Qian was hardly the most despotic thing Wudi would do before his reign ended. It is but one episode in a string of terrors, one paint-stroke in a portrait of tyranny. > But who painted the portrait? None other than the grand historian Sima Qian. We remember Wudi as Sima Qian chose to depict him. Had Wudi realized the influence his court astronomer would have on future generations, he might have treated him differently. But Wudi realized none of this. Sima Qian was published brutally and embarrassed publicly. He was a loser. > But in the end, the loser got his revenge.
- cttet 6y ago
  “But in the end, the loser got his revenge.” It may be just survivorship bias, since all the "losers" that are really "lost" in history are nowhere to be found. In the story of your reference, Wudi did not choose to destroy the work of Sima Qian, which he can do easily if he want to, and happened a lot in Chinese history https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burning_of_books_and_burying_of_scholars https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burning_of_books_and_burying_o.... Sima Qian may be just a lucky guy enough to get his work passed on and that's all.

sterlind 6y ago

I think we should fight to preserve what cultures, people and languages we have left. The Ainu language is nearly extinct, and it represents an entirely separate language family from Japanese for example. Anthropology (especially linguistics too) is a jigsaw puzzle for which we're losing pieces every day. Plus it feels right to try to save them.

whymauri 6y ago
100% agree - my mom's family is Wayuu and we speak a dying language. I didn't grow up in the same ancestral lands my grandmother did, but I do try to retain my very basic grasp of the language. And I will encourage my kids to learn the basics. It's too sad to think of the finality of culture, but this is the least I can do. I think it's great that some Ainu are relearning the language - it's such a strong cultural bond.
- sterlind 6y ago
  It's really good that you encourage your kids to learn! Languages carry so much culture, so assimilation programs in the US and Canada focused on breaking the teaching cycle of native languages to force cultural assimilation. I'm white but I work with a Coast Salish language that the tribes are trying to bring back from extinction. Indian children were forced into boarding schools and beaten if they didn't speak English, so a generation grew up without learning and the last L1 speaker died a decade ago. So much was lost, but linguists and elders wrote down enough that revival is possible. It will take hard work and determination for entire tribes though, so it may never recover except in ceremonial usage.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
tathougies 6y ago
I don't. As a member of a small ethnic group myself, I really don't understand why. Whatever it was that we had to give to the world has been given. None of us have been treated cruelly for being of a certain race (for the most part). We just chose to move away, marry others (because we're not race purists, like many 'indigineous' activists, I suppose?), raise our children, and be happy. Not every society has produced things of equal value, and it's not particularly offensive to notice that.
diffrinse 6y ago
There are no languages we know of related to Japanese
- Mediterraneo10 6y ago
  This is not quite true. That some extinct languages of the Korean peninsula were related to Japanese on the basis of toponymy, is now nearly universally agreed on among linguists, whether they accept the Altaic hypothesis (or the recent "Transeurasian" rebranding of it) or reject the Altaic hypothesis.
  - diffrinse 6y ago
    Did I really have to say no living languages?
    - Mediterraneo10 6y ago
      The work on Korean toponymy is recent enough (and still ongoing) that it is missing in many older standard references for the history of Japanese. So, in a discussion like this, if a person mentions that the Japonic family is a language isolate, then it is helpful to add for readers less familiar with this subject that it isn’t completely isolated.

foobar_ 6y ago

I've been watching Meerkat Manor recently. More than monkeys I feel we resemble meerkats. It was exactly like watching people. At the bottom of it, it boils down to family vs family, which is tribe vs tribe in larger units fighting over rights to exploit a territory.

barry-cotter 6y ago

History is written by those who care enough to write history. For over a 100 years historiography of the US Civil War was dominated by Southerners and there are plenty of other examples of political losers being most influential in historical memory. Machiavelli ensured Cesar Borgia will live forever by his writing and both of them lost. Sima Qian was castrated. https://scholars-stage.blogspot.com/2016/11/history-is-written-by-losers.html?m=1 https://scholars-stage.blogspot.com/2016/11/history-is-writt... > To restate Sima Qian’s experience in less emotional terms: because he was principled enough to contradict the emperor in the presence of his court, Sima Qian was sentenced to castration. This was a death sentence—any self-respecting man of his day would commit suicide before submitting to the procedure. Everyone expected Sima Qian to do so. But in the end Sima Qian decided to accept the punishment and live the rest of his life in shame, because if he did not he would never finish the history he had started. > Not every historian has the balls to a challenge despot face-to-face. For despotic Wudi was—the castration of Sima Qian was hardly the most despotic thing Wudi would do before his reign ended. It is but one episode in a string of terrors, one paint-stroke in a portrait of tyranny. > But who painted the portrait? None other than the grand historian Sima Qian. We remember Wudi as Sima Qian chose to depict him. Had Wudi realized the influence his court astronomer would have on future generations, he might have treated him differently. But Wudi realized none of this. Sima Qian was published brutally and embarrassed publicly. He was a loser. > But in the end, the loser got his revenge.

cttet 6y ago
“But in the end, the loser got his revenge.” It may be just survivorship bias, since all the "losers" that are really "lost" in history are nowhere to be found. In the story of your reference, Wudi did not choose to destroy the work of Sima Qian, which he can do easily if he want to, and happened a lot in Chinese history https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burning_of_books_and_burying_of_scholars https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burning_of_books_and_burying_o.... Sima Qian may be just a lucky guy enough to get his work passed on and that's all.