Howard, A. orcid.org/0000-0002-7015-3534 and Nelson, D. (2024) Snake words in Estonia: Language, nature and extinction in Andrus Kivirähk’s The Man Who Spoke Snakish. Cambridge Prisms: Extinction, 2. e3. ISSN 2755-0958
Abstract
This article discusses Estonian author Andrus Kivirähk’s novel The Man Who Spoke Snakish in the context of language extinction and biocultural diversity. The novel is set in Medieval Estonia, but the viewpoint of the protagonist as a speaker of a vanishing language from a vanishing culture resonates with the lived experience of millions of people who have lost lifeways and livelihoods to colonisation and cultural assimilation. The fictitious language of Snakish allows its speakers to integrate fully into the natural world and to form complex interdependent relationships with non-human animals. This web of nature, culture and language is destroyed by a colonising society that is anthropocentric, ecologically destructive and socially hierarchical, and which views nature as something to exploit or fear. The novel explores the emotions of grief and loss for both a culture and an ecosystem heading for extinction.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © The Author(s), 2024. Published by Cambridge University Press. This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution and reproduction, provided the original article is properly cited. |
Keywords: | colonialism; cultural extinction; decline; human activities; indigenous |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Leeds |
Academic Units: | The University of Leeds > Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Cultures (Leeds) > School of English (Leeds) |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Publications |
Date Deposited: | 16 May 2024 10:21 |
Last Modified: | 16 May 2024 10:21 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Cambridge University Press |
Identification Number: | 10.1017/ext.2024.3 |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:212553 |