The Race to Save the World's Endangered Languages
Native American Ho-Chunk elders prophecy that when their language is lost, the world itself will end. In a sense, this is true, for the world contained within their language — the hundreds of generations of history, culture, tradition and understanding of the local environment — will disappear when the final speaker of that language passes on. Unless, that is, those who speak this language are able to teach it to future generations.
Every two weeks, the last fluent speaker of a native language dies. Within the next 100 years, over half the world’s 7,000 languages are likely to vanish. On Friday, April 3, linguist Greg Anderson will discuss the global extinction of languages, what we can learn from endangered languages, and the global efforts being made to save them. He will also explain the grave situation facing Oregon’s own native languages.
Greg Anderson, founder and director of the Living Tongues Institute for Endangered Languages, in Salem, Oregon, received his undergraduate degree in linguistics from Harvard University and his doctoral degree in linguistics from the University of Chicago. He played an integral role in National Geographic Society’s Enduring Voices Project.
