Linguist on mission to save Inuit 'fossil language' disappearing with the ice (fwd link)

[Phillip E Cash Cash]

Linguist on mission to save Inuit 'fossil language' disappearing with the
ice

Cambridge researcher will live in Arctic and document Inughuit culture and
language threatened by climate change

Mark Brown, arts correspondent
The Guardian, Friday 13 August 2010
UK

Stephen Pax Leonard will soon swap the lawns, libraries and high tables of
Cambridge University for three months of darkness, temperatures as low as
-40C and hunting seals for food with a spear.

But the academic researcher, who leaves Britain this weekend, has a mission:
to take the last chance to document the language and traditions of an entire
culture.

"I'm extremely excited but, yes, also apprehensive," Leonard said as he made
the final preparations for what is, by anyone's standards, the trip of a
lifetime.

Leonard, an anthropological linguist, is to spend a year living with the
Inughuit people of north-west Greenland, a tiny community whose members
manage to live a similar hunting and gathering life to their ancestors. They
speak a language – the dialect is called Inuktun – that has never fully been
written down, and they pass down their stories and traditions orally.

"Climate change means they have around 10 or 15 years left," said Leonard.
"Then they'll have to move south and in all probability move in to modern
flats." If that happens, an entire language and culture is likely to
disappear.

Access full article below:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/aug/13/inuit-language-culture-threatened
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/ilat/attachments/20100812/19496c73/attachment.htm>