Saturday, June 21, 2008

Enduring Voices

Linguists say, that nearly one-half of the languages spoken in the World today are in danger of extinction and are likely to disappear in this century. In fact, they are now falling out of use at a rate of about one every two weeks. Thus, we will lose more than ONE-HALF of humanity's linguistic, social, and cultural legacy as the last remaining native speakers, die.

WHAT REGIONS ARE THREATENED?
http://www.nationalgeographic.com/mission/enduringvoices/

LIVING TONGUES (Institute for Endanged Languages):
http://www.livingtongues.org/

Every language and culture is part of the mosaic of humanity...

ABOUT LANGUAGE:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Language

There are about 7000 spoken languages (which sub-divide into 39,491 alternate names and dialects).

ALL KNOWN LANGUAGES:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_languages

ETHNOLOGUE:
(Encyclopedic reference, cataloging all 6,912 of the known living languages.)

http://www.ethnologue.com/web.asp