Language and Culture

(CreoFire.com)

What holds a culture together? What are the elements of cultural cohesion? No doubt there are many items which could be suggested such as language, rituals, shared values, and community/organizational structure. 

  

When a language dies or is overtaken by another language, the culture changes or dies. Consider what happened with many First Nation cultures as they were forbidden to speak their mother tongues. Tribal elders remember a time when Indian culture was nearly lost because speaking the language, conducting the dances and putting on the ceremonies was forbidden by authorities. (https://www.heraldandnews.com/special_reports/culture-and-traditions-the-glue-that-holds-our-society-together/article_5c3a041c-5b56-11e1-9530-0019bb2963f4.html) Mandatory American boarding schools forbade native languages to be spoken. Children, alienated from their families, began to lose their languages and their cultures during their stay at these institutions. Unable to perform ceremonies and traditions in native tongues, a slow loss of tradition and identity became inevitable. (https://www.nps.gov/articles/negotiating-identity.htm) 

Language is important, critical, for cultural cohesion and transmission. Across the world, languages are being lost at an alarming rate. Linguists estimate roughly half of the world's 6,000 languages will vanish within 100 years. (http://news.psu.edu/story/141259/2008/02/11/research/probing-question-what-lost-when-language-dies) When a language dies or is overtaken by an imposed other language a worldview is lost. As Connor P. Williams states, ...(L)osing a language means losing knowledge of the world that is at once subtle and comprehensive, unique, and intuitive. It means losing pieces of information, certainly, but it also means reducing the number of perspectives we have for viewing the world. Or, to put it best, it means losing worldviews. Think of a language as a shortcut that obscures some things about human experience and elevates others. (https://www.newamerica.org/education-policy/edcentral/multilingualismmatters/) 

Even within subgroups within societies identifying languages are dying. Take the Presbyterian Church as an example. What one calls something carries with it a theological understanding as well as a functional meaning. In the last couple of decades, Presbyterians have not been able to agree on what to call those who function as "pastor." At one time, there were several names in the Book of Order, based on various functions. After some time, the official name for the functional role became "Minister of Word and Sacrament." When the Book of Order was rewritten, the term "teaching elder" was introduced to indicate an equality yet functional difference with "ruling elders." Almost immediately a rebellion arose. Two years ago, the denomination reverted to Minister of Word and Sacrament as the official term. One of the reasons claimed for the reversion was that our members and our ecumenical partners did not know what a "teaching elder" is. 

One of the things I have noticed in my nearly forty-eight years of ordained service in the Presbyterian Church (USA) and its predecessors is we have lost much of what once was our common language. This has seemed true since the 1983 coming together of the former PCUS and UPCUSA denominations. At one-point sessions, presbyteries, synods and the General Assembly were known as "judicatories" which were then called "governing bodies" and now, with the adoption of the rewritten Book of Order, they are referred to as "councils." No longer do we have a common language to describe the various functional areas. For instance, ministerial relations became committees/commissions on ministry, and now each presbytery can choose its own name for the group carrying out these functions. The list of changed and changing terms goes on and on. 

The result of all the changing nomenclature is a loss of a common language supporting a particular ecclesiological culture and a particular theological understanding. Some would applaud the freedom to restructure and give their own names to various functions. On the other hand, it is far more confusing and difficult to identify who is doing what across the denomination. How can we who are elder elders pass on the culture of the denomination if the language is constantly changing? What has been lost, and what has been gained?