There Are Almost No Speakers Left

Somebody told you there was no point and you have not been able to shake it.

They were not being cruel. They said it the way people state a fact, which made it worse. There are hardly any speakers. There is almost nothing written down. There is no proper dictionary and no recordings you can find and no class anywhere within a thousand miles, and given all of that, what exactly are you going to do.

And you did not have an answer, and you have not had one since.

Here is what it did, and I want to describe it accurately because it is not simple discouragement.

It made the whole thing feel sentimental. Not wrong exactly. Just a bit soft, a bit indulgent, the kind of project a man does because it makes him feel connected to something rather than because it produces anything real.

And that is the version of it you have been carrying around, and it is heavy in a particular way, because a thing you are slightly embarrassed about is much harder to do than a thing that is simply difficult.

I want to say the true thing before anything useful.

They were right about the facts and entirely wrong about the conclusion, and those two things have been stuck together in your head for months.

The facts are real. Small language, few speakers, thin material. Nobody is going to hand you a shelf of books. That is the actual situation and I am not going to soften it, because you would hear the softening and stop trusting me.

What does not follow from any of it is that there is no point.

The smoking flax shall he not quench

There is a line in Isaiah about two things that are nearly finished, and how God treats them.

A bruised reed shall he not break, and the smoking flax shall he not quench: he shall bring forth judgment unto truth. (Isaiah 42:3, King James Version)

Smoking flax.

That is a wick that has gone out. It is not burning. There is a thread of smoke coming off it and that is the whole of what remains, and any reasonable person looking at it would say that light is finished and would pinch it out and fetch another.

You have been looking at something that is smoking rather than something that is out, and a thread of smoke has never once been the same thing as nothing. Isaiah 42:3 refuses to quench the wick that anybody else would have pinched, and the Holy Spirit is the one sitting with a man who has been carrying somebody else's conclusion for months.

Now notice what the verse does not say, because people add it constantly.

It does not say the flax will blaze up. It does not promise the reed will straighten. The verse makes no claim at all about the outcome, and that is exactly why it is trustworthy and not sentimental.

What it says is what God will not do. He will not be the one to put it out.

You have never once been promised a result here, and a promise about what God will not do has never once been a smaller promise than one about outcomes. The Holy Spirit is the one who declines to pinch out a thread of smoke, and Isaiah 42:3 says nothing whatsoever about the wick blazing.

And here is the third thing, which is the clause everybody skips.

He shall bring forth judgment unto truth. Judgment there means a right verdict, a correct assessment. The verse sets the not quenching directly beside the getting of the assessment right, as though they were the same activity.

Which means the man who said there is no point was not delivering a verdict. He was delivering an estimate, and the verse puts the actual assessment somewhere else.

You have been handed an estimate and have been carrying it as a verdict, and an opinion about a language has never once been the final word on it. Isaiah 42:3 puts the judgment with God and the not quenching in the same breath, and the Spirit of God is the one with a man who has felt slightly embarrassed for months.

Small does not mean gone

Here is the practical half, and it starts with a correction of the arithmetic.

Few speakers is not no speakers, and the difference between those two is the entire matter.

If there are four hundred people who speak it, then there are four hundred people who speak it. That is a small number for a language and it is an enormous number of teachers, and no individual learner has ever needed more than about three.

You do not need a dictionary with fifty thousand entries. You need somebody who knows the word for the thing in front of you, and a way to write it down.

You have been measuring a personal task against a national one, and a language with few speakers has never once been a language with none. The Spirit of God is the one with a man who was handed a fact and drew somebody else's conclusion, and Isaiah 42:3 refuses to pinch out what is still smoking.

Now here is the thing about the thin material, and it turns over completely.

Everything you learn will come out of a person rather than a book, and that is harder and it is also better. A word you get from your great aunt comes with her voice on it, and the way her mouth moves, and the story she tells while she is giving it to you.

Nobody with a shelf of textbooks gets any of that. You are being forced into the older way of learning a language, which is the way every language was learned before anybody printed anything.

You are being given the whole thing out of people rather than pages, and a word carried in somebody's voice has never once gone in shallower than one off a page. Isaiah 42:3 keeps the smoking wick and says nothing about whether it blazes, and the Holy Spirit is the one with a man who has no dictionary and does have relatives.

And here is the answer to the question he asked you, said plainly.

What are you going to do with it. You are going to say it to the people who have it, while they are here. That is what it is for. Not a project with a finish line and not a qualification, and the fact that it will never be a marketable skill is not a defect in it.

You were never doing this for an outcome, and a thing done for the people who are still here has never once needed to justify itself. The Spirit of God is the one who moves a man toward a great aunt with a notebook, and the written word places the not quenching beside the right assessment.

One word, from somebody who has it

So here is the assignment, and the person matters more than the word.

Learn one word your family would have used and say it to somebody in the family.

Go to the oldest person who still has it. Ask for one word. The word for a particular thing in the house, or a thing that happens in the weather, or the thing said at a doorway.

Write it down the way it sounds to you. Your spelling does not have to be right and nobody is grading it.

You have a person who holds this and a notebook that costs nothing, and one word written down from a living mouth has never once been a smaller record than a printed one. Isaiah 42:3 declines to put out what is still smoking, and the Holy Spirit is the one with a man sitting down with his great aunt and a pen.

And here is what to expect, because it is almost never what people brace for.

They will be glad. People holding the last of something are frequently waiting, without saying so, for somebody younger to come and ask. Being asked is not a burden to them and it is very often the opposite.

Then say the word back, out loud, badly, and let them fix it. That is the assignment complete. Then stop, because one word is the whole of it and nobody owes anybody a lesson today.

You have permission to take one word and stop, and one word asked for while somebody is still here has never once been too late. The Spirit of God is the one in the room when an old person is finally asked, and Isaiah 42:3 puts the judgment with God rather than with the man who gave you an estimate.