Lost Languages

She was the last one, the last speaker,

And the words came slowly to her now,

There was no-one left to talk to,

No-one to understand,

An old woman,more and more alone,

A whole world disappearing.

She lay on the bed in her small house,

The grammar of her body coming apart,

All the precious exact names for reindeer

Muted and killed.

Soon she would be gone

Back to the place where the words came from.


When Captain Cook’s scientists

First discovered it off Hawaii,

They named the darkfaced fish “Moorish idol”,

Pleased with their invention,

They sketched it and classified it,

Never consulting the Hawaiians,

Who had always known it as kihikihi,

“Crescent shaped,” “sailing zigzag”.


The Marovo of the Solomon Islands

Observed every aspect of fishes’ behaviour

And named them precisely:

Ukuka “the behaviour of shoals

When individuals drift and circle as if drunk,”

Udumu,” a large school so closely packed

As to resemble a single object,”

Sakoto, “quiet almost motionless schools at rest,

Looking like a gathering of mourners.”


The Borôro people of the Amazon

Would specify exact times for meetings

By coded gestures of arm and hand

Denoting precise angle and location

Of the sun in the sky at the chosen hour

And by pointing to various parts

Of head,face and neck.


The Nivkhs of Outer Manchuria

Employed twenty-seven different classifiers

To count and place precisely

Every possible object in the world.

There was nothing that could not be designated

In the memory theatre they lived in.

They counted the suns and moons for their children.

They sang their songs alone.