The last point of interest that I will discuss is with the Koro language that has 1,000 speakers currently. This group is so isolated that you must have a raft to access their village and many of the young people are leaving the area for work. This is making it harder for the language to be passed on when younger generations must leave for work and must speak whatever the language is that is popular in the area that they are working. Professor Harrison mentions in the lessons that, “Young speakers are empowered actors for language survival” and I feel that is absolutely accurate. Young generations have so much power and it is fantastic when they realize it.

Professor Harrison closes his keynote by addressing issues with a universal language like the fact that we would lose a tremendous amount of human knowledge. The good that comes from language diversity has to do with the knowledge we can gain by exploring language hotspots, which are areas that have a high level of language diversity, a high level of language endangerment, and a low level of scientific documentation. He ended by thanking the students for taking such an interest in language and carrying on the study of language. It is possible that I would never have been introduced to language diversity without this lecture and I am so glad that I am more knowledgeable on the subject.
