About This Project
According to the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), a language becomes extinct every two weeks. This may not seem insignificant, yet a rich culture and tradition is lost. As Dr. K. David Harrison, associate director of the Living Tongues Institute for Endangered Languages and a linguist at Swarthmore College, puts it, “When we lose a language, we lose centuries of thinking about time, seasons, sea creatures, reindeer, edible flowers, mathematics, landscapes, myths, music, the unknown and the everyday.”
Our hope is that, through this initiative, we can uplift Indigenous voices and educate the public with primarily first-hand accounts. These may include articles, published research, information from cultural centers, etc.
If you are interested in joining the Language Preservation team, click this link: https://tinyurl.com/join-language-preservation.
For reference, the photo above was taken in Iñapari, Madre de Dios, Perú. As of 1999, there were only four native speakers of the Iñapari language. In Bolivia, no native speakers remain; the dialect most similar to Spanish is Pacaguara. Source: Iñapari at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015)
