More than 30 percent of the world’s 7,400 languages will no longer be spoken by the end of this century. In principle, with the disappearance of these languages, interesting knowledge about the medicinal properties of plants is also in danger of being lost. That is what Rodrigo Cámara-Leret and Jordi Bascompte (University of Zurich) argue in PNAS.
The scientists analyzed 3,597 plant species with a staggering 12,495 medicinal uses and linked that data to 236 indigenous languages from three biologically and culturally diverse regions: the northwestern Amazon, New Guinea and North America. Bottom line: 75 percent of the medicinal uses of these plants are known in only one language. It is precisely in those languages that are most at risk of being lost forever – there are some with only a handful of speakers left. The situation is most dire in the northwestern Amazon region: Cámara-Leret and Bascompte evaluated 645 plant species and their medicinal uses in that area, according to the oral tradition of 37 languages. They found that 91 percent of this knowledge only exists in a single language.
The medical applications span the entire medical spectrum, the researchers say, from cardiovascular complaints through infections and infestations to diseases of the skin, nervous system, urinary tract and mental health. The researchers acknowledge that only about 6 percent of the higher plants have been screened for biological activity. They therefore do not comment on the effectiveness of all these applications. ‘We treat this knowledge here for what it is: part of the cultural heritage of indigenous peoples.’ That the United Nations has declared the period 2022-2032 as the international decade of indigenous languages is therefore a good thing, according to Cámara-Leret and Bascompte.
https://www.pnas.org/content/118/24/e2103683118
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