LiveAndTell (fwd link)

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LiveAndTell,
A Crowdsourced Quest To Save Native American Languages

BY PAUL GLADERFri Jul 1, 2011
USA

While you won't have any trouble finding a way to learn Spanish,
French, or German in the United States, brushing up on your Lakota or
Navajo isn't so easy.

The Endangered Language Fund projects that half of the languages
spoken on earth will disappear in the next century, and Native
American tongues are among them. The Administration for Native
Americans reports that when the U.S. was founded, more than 300 Native
American languages were spoken. That number has since dropped to 175,
and only 20 are taught to children. The rest, it says, “are classified
as deteriorating or nearing extinction.”

Access full article below:
http://www.fastcompany.com/1764575/liveandtell-a-south-dakotans-quest-to-save-endangered-dialect