I have recently come across the worst case of language vandalism I’ve encountered for many years. Namely, the claim that ‘rivers’ are ‘persons’. The Australian Geographic recently reported that in some nations rivers are being given ‘legal personhood’. They report that in New Zealand, the Whanganui River has been granted ‘legal personhood’, as has Canada’s Magpie River. In India, both the Ganges and Yamuna Rivers are classified as a ‘living person’.

Here in Australia the Yarra River holds the legal status of a ‘living entity’. The Australian Geographic report quotes a ‘water law and policy expert’ Erin O’Donnell as saying, ‘The “living entity” is a formal acknowledgement in law that the river and its lands are alive, which is profound.’ It strikes me as being profoundly dumb.

Inanimate things (rocks, dirt, water) are not ‘alive’ in any sense of that word in the English language. The Oxford says ‘alive’ can only apply to a human being, or an animal, or a plant. But the article quotes O’Donnell as saying this ‘living entity’ classification for the Yarra is ‘like recognising that animals are alive and sentient for the purposes of animal welfare….’ She insists that just as we acknowledge animals as having needs, and feelings, ‘So we’re acknowledging the same thing with the river’. Well, Erin O’Donnell may be acknowledging that, but most Australians are not. Common sense is not. And any proper use of the English language does not. O’Donnell says the Yarra River ‘is a living being with whom we are in a relationship’. Is it just me, or does that claim strike you as being utterly unhinged?

Apparently this ‘living entity’ label was given to the Yarra River in a 2017 Act of the Victorian parliament called the ‘Yarra River Protection (Wilip-Gin Birrarung Murron) Act 2017’. (This is also the first Act of an Australian parliament to be co-titled in an Aboriginal language.)  The Cambridge Dictionary says the word ‘river’ means ‘a natural flow of water’ while the word ‘person’ means ‘a man, woman or child’. The Oxford says: a person is ‘an individual human being, a man, woman, or child’. If we are showing respect to words we cannot say that a ‘natural flow of water’ is a ‘man, woman or child.’ At least the Victorian legislation doesn’t pretend that the Yarra River is a ‘person’; it just says ‘entity’.

It’s time to go to the barricades, and fight to protect the language. Words have real meaning in the real world –and that truth and reality must be defended. Or maybe I should play the same game? And call ‘language’ a ‘living being’? Should I claim the English language is a ‘person’? No! I don’t want to walk that far down Stupid Street!