U. conference addresses endangered languages (fwd link)

[phil cash cash]

U. conference addresses endangered languages

By Wendy Leonard
Deseret News
Published: Thursday, Nov. 12, 2009 4:43 p.m. MST
USA

In a world where more than 7,000 languages are spoken, it's hard to imagine
everyone speaking the same tongue – or one of only four.

In the last 500 years, half of the world's languages have become extinct. It is
predicted that in the next 100 years, nearly 50 percent of the world's current
languages will follow suit, much like Kuku Thaypan, an Australian Aboriginal
language in which only one man now is fluent."It's an unspeakable tragedy,"
said Lyle Campbell, a University of Utah linguistics professor and director of
the U.'s Center for American Indian Languages. He said that of the 151 American
Indian languages spoken in America today, only 20 of them are being taught to
children, which means that much of the knowledge originated in those languages
could be lost with the extinction of various tongues. In Utah, the Shoshone
language has great possibility of becoming extinct, because only the senior
population speaks it.

Access full article below:
http://www.deseretnews.com/article/705344021/U-conference-addresses-endangered-languages.html