Open AccessLanguage extinction triggers the loss of unique medicinal knowledge
Author(s) -
Rodrigo CámaraLeret,
Jordi Bascompte
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
proceedings of the national academy of sciences of the united states of america
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 5.011
H-Index - 771
eISSN - 1091-6490
pISSN - 0027-8424
DOI - 10.1073/pnas.2103683118
Subject(s) - threatened species , traditional knowledge , indigenous , extinction (optical mineralogy) , biodiversity , linguistics , agroforestry , biology , computer science , geography , ecology , philosophy , paleontology , habitat
Significance The United Nations proclamation of 2022–2032 as the International Decade of Indigenous Languages aims to raise global awareness about their endangerment and importance for sustainable development. Indigenous languages contain the knowledge that communities have about their surrounding plants and the services they provide. The use of plants in medicine is a particularly relevant example of such ecosystem services. Here, we find that most medicinal knowledge is linguistically unique—i.e., known by a single language—and more strongly associated with threatened languages than with threatened plants. Each indigenous language is therefore a unique reservoir of medicinal knowledge—a Rosetta stone for unraveling and conserving nature’s contributions to people.