How Do You Preserve An Endangered Language?

Short Wave

By the end of the century, more than 40% of the world's estimated 7,000 languages are in danger of disappearing. Those include indigenous languages in the Amazon. The United Nations also estimates that an Indigenous language dies every two weeks. Today, we focus on two endangered languages spoken in the Vaupés region of northwest Amazonia: Desano and Siriano. Linguist Wilson de Lima Silva at the University of Arizona has been working with the community for a decade in an effort to document the language for future generations.
Check out the book Global Language Justice, co-edited by Professor Lydia Liu.
Editor's note: We have updated the headline to more accurately reflect the liguists' efforts.
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