Understanding is Knowledge

Today, the whole world is fading away from tradition and conforming to a modern, secular society. Back then, tradition and culture were very prominent and distinct. Everyone had a lifestyle to which they could identify and pride in. However, things slowly began to change, and as we as humans progressed over the years, these cherished things have gradually become replaced with technology and urban customs, thanks to extensive globalization.
   One of the saddest examples I see everyday is language shift. The English language may only rank third in the number of speakers, but its prominence is much higher. People from all over the world learn it in schools-- a plus to many. We need a lingua franca so everyone can communicate with each other, but English has done much more than that. Because it is learned everywhere, our recent generations have begun to stop speaking other languages and solely speaking English. As a result, their young ones do not learn their native tongue, and the language slowly decreases in the number of speakers. Moreover, hundreds of thousands of languages have become critically endangered and moribund. A notable language that is going extinct is the Miyako language, a Ryukyuan speech from the Japonic language family. Only a couple of thousand speakers remain due to the homogeneity that Japan craves. With this, Japanese is more widely spoken, pushing out its other language counterparts. In fact, speakers of the Japanese language are so headstrong to other languages being present in the archipelago that --despite the clear differences-- they are considered dialects.
   Another issue that has been faced is the loss of culture through globalization. People have told stories of visiting places like Indonesia. They came to those places expecting a rich cultural experience, but instead, they found a McDonald's and countless Americana souvenirs-- nothing Balinese, Javanese, or whatever. This goes to show how the world is losing its uniqueness from things of the past. The things we all once knew have become useless. Unfortunately, the wonderful things have become no match for an ever-growing secular society.