Conclusion

Abstract

The book concludes by uniting the themes developed throughout the volume. It introduces the concepts of the soundscape and of soundmarks to show how place may be both physical and aural, as argued in earlier chapters. Place creation is the mapping of a community’s boundaries onto its space, via storytelling, using landmarks to define the boundaries of physical space, and via the use of soundmarks to indicate the boundaries of aural space. Places reflect who we are, and they teach us how to be. They are intrinsically personal, and their loss felt profoundly. There are many reasons that we should be concerned about land and language loss, but it is precisely because the connection to land and to language is so very intimate, that they matter so much to the people whose lives shape and are shaped by them, that we should care when they are threatened.