Holma Voice: Iris and Jack on Codes, Lists and Place

Iris: I pulled the Holma file. It doesn't give us sentences, just placement. Afro-Asiatic, Chadic, Biu-Mandara, Bata, A.8, Holma. Native to Nigeria — Adamawa State. Status listed as extinct, early 1990s. What is left as markers are codes: ISO 639-3 hod, Glottolog holm1250.

Jack: So that's what survives? A chain and two codes?

Iris: And the place. That is all the record really holds — no invented vocabulary, no reconstructed speakers. Just where it lived on the map and where it sits in the family.

Jack: Then what does preserving a voice mean here? If there is no one left to say it, are we keeping a language or keeping a list?

Iris: Maybe keeping the list carefully. Not filling in what we don't have. Holding the name, the place, the chain, so it isn't blurred into something else.

Jack: No new words, no stand-ins. Just: this was here, this is what it was called, this is how it was classified. And that has to be enough to show respect.

Iris: It has to be. The care is in not pretending.