Helping Endangered Languages
OK, let’s get started. Today, we want to take a look at efforts to protect endangered languages. Eleven of the world’s languages have at least one hundred million native speakers. The United Nations says that these eleven languages are the mother tongues of half of the world’s population. But the world has close to seven thousand languages. Linguists predict that as many as half of these may be at risk of disappearing by the end of this century.
Members of the Native American Siletz tribe take pride in their language. But today, very few people can speak it fluently. When linguists came in and assessed the tribe, they labeled the language “moribund,” or on the brink of extinction. So, several National Geographic fellows helped the tribe record fourteen thousand words and phrases of the language. More than ten thousand entries can be found in the Siletz Online Talking Dictionary.
Dr. David Harrison is a linguistics professor. He has online dictionaries of highly endangered languages from around the world. He says that technology can promote the influence of major languages but also help save endangered ones. He and Dr. Greg Anderson have mapped areas of endangered languages. Why does the world have endangered languages?
OK, let’s get started. Today, we want to take a look at efforts to protect endangered languages. Eleven of the world’s languages have at least one hundred million native speakers. The United Nations says that these eleven languages are the mother tongues of half of the world’s population. But the world has close to seven thousand languages. Linguists predict that as many as half of these may be at risk of disappearing by the end of this century.
Members of the Native American Siletz tribe take pride in their language. But today, very few people can speak it fluently. When linguists came in and assessed the tribe, they labeled the language “moribund,” or on the brink of extinction. So, several National Geographic fellows helped the tribe record fourteen thousand words and phrases of the language. More than ten thousand entries can be found in the Siletz Online Talking Dictionary.
Dr. David Harrison is a linguistics professor. He has online dictionaries of highly endangered languages from around the world. He says that technology can promote the influence of major languages but also help save endangered ones. He and Dr. Greg Anderson have mapped areas of endangered languages. Why does the world have endangered languages?