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<p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:5.0pt;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:
5.0pt;margin-left:0in;text-autospace:none'><b><font size=5
face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:18.0pt;font-weight:bold'>Vanishing
Languages Identified</span></font></b><br>
<st1:State w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Oklahoma</st1:place></st1:State> Is
Among Places Where Tongues Are Disappearing<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:5.0pt;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:
5.0pt;margin-left:0in;text-autospace:none'><font size=2 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:10.0pt'>By Rick Weiss<br>
<st1:State w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Washington</st1:place></st1:State>
Post Staff Writer<br>
Wednesday, September 19, 2007; A12</span></font><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:5.0pt;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:
5.0pt;margin-left:0in;text-autospace:none'><st1:State w:st="on"><st1:place
w:st="on"><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>Oklahoma</span></font></st1:place></st1:State>
has earned the dubious distinction of being one of the five worst
"language-loss hotspots" in the world -- places where native
languages are going extinct the fastest -- according to an analysis released
yesterday.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:5.0pt;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:
5.0pt;margin-left:0in;text-autospace:none'><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt'>The <st1:PlaceName w:st="on">Sooner</st1:PlaceName> <st1:PlaceType
w:st="on">State</st1:PlaceType>'s inclusion in the global top five is a
reminder, researchers said, that the <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place
w:st="on">United States</st1:place></st1:country-region> has a long history of
linguistic diversity and that the problem of language extinctions is not
limited to distant lands.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:5.0pt;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:
5.0pt;margin-left:0in;text-autospace:none'><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt'>Of the approximately 7,000 languages spoken, about
half are expected to disappear in this century, said K. David Harrison, a <st1:place
w:st="on"><st1:PlaceName w:st="on">Swarthmore</st1:PlaceName> <st1:PlaceType
w:st="on">College</st1:PlaceType></st1:place> linguist and co-director of the
Enduring Voices project. That collaboration between the <a
href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/National+Geographic+Society?tid=informline">National
Geographic Society</a> and the Living Tongues Institute for Endangered
Languages of <a
href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/Salem?tid=informline">Salem</a>,
Ore., assembled the latest statistics on global language loss.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:5.0pt;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:
5.0pt;margin-left:0in;text-autospace:none'><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt'>While previous analyses have focused on individual
languages that have just one or a few surviving speakers, <a
href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/Harrison?tid=informline">Harrison</a>
and his colleagues took a geographic approach, identifying where in the world
languages are disappearing fastest. <a
href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/Oklahoma?tid=informline">Oklahoma</a>
and nearby areas of the American Southwest, it turns out, have an extremely
rich linguistic fabric because of the many Native American tribes that were
corralled there in the 1800s.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:5.0pt;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:
5.0pt;margin-left:0in;text-autospace:none'><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt'>Today those languages are disappearing by the month,
and with them a treasure trove of ecological insights, culinary and medicinal
secrets and complex cultural histories, including mythologies that can teach a
lot about universal human fears and aspirations, <st1:place w:st="on">Harrison</st1:place>
said.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:5.0pt;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:
5.0pt;margin-left:0in;text-autospace:none'><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt'>"It may seem frivolous, but mythological
traditions are attempts to make sense of the universe, and the different ways
that the human mind has tried to grapple with the unknown and the unknowable
are of scientific interest," he said.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:5.0pt;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:
5.0pt;margin-left:0in;text-autospace:none'><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt'>Following in the footsteps of early colonialists, but
carrying high-quality digital video and audio equi<st1:PersonName w:st="on">pm</st1:PersonName>ent
instead of guns and trinkets, the Enduring Voices project has launched a number
of expeditions to document dying languages, about half of which have no written
form. Where there is interest in preserving those tongues, it has helped create
teaching materials for use in local classrooms.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:5.0pt;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:
5.0pt;margin-left:0in;text-autospace:none'><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt'>The venture's analysis, based in part on scholarly
research and presented in a telephone news conference yesterday, took three
factors into account in identifying the "hotspots": The diversity of
languages spoken, the number of living speakers and how old they are, and the
extent to which the languages have been documented.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:5.0pt;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:
5.0pt;margin-left:0in;text-autospace:none'><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt'>Among those on the brink of extinction in <st1:State
w:st="on">Oklahoma</st1:State> is Yuchi, a language native to the same-named
tribe from <a
href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/Tennessee?tid=informline">Tennessee</a>
and believed to be unrelated to any other in the world. It is spoken by just a
handful of elders because youngsters in government boarding schools were
punished if they veered from English. Yuchi tales tell of Earth's creation from
water with the help of a crawfish and the emergence of the tribe's forebears
from a drop of menstrual blood in the sky.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:5.0pt;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:
5.0pt;margin-left:0in;text-autospace:none'><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt'>The other four hotspots are:<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:5.0pt;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:
5.0pt;margin-left:0in;text-autospace:none'><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt'>1. Northern <a
href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/Australia?tid=informline">Australia</a>,
where project members recorded the last known speaker of Amurdag -- a man who
remembers about 100 words that he last heard spoken by his now-deceased father.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:5.0pt;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:
5.0pt;margin-left:0in;text-autospace:none'><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt'>2. Central <a
href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/South+America?tid=informline">South
America</a>, where the Kallawaya of <a
href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/Bolivia?tid=informline">Bolivia</a>
have for at least 400 years maintained a secret language about medicinal
plants.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:5.0pt;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:
5.0pt;margin-left:0in;text-autospace:none'><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt'>3. The Northwest Pacific Plateau, where there is but a
single woman who can still speak Siletz Dee-ni, the last of 27 languages once
spoken on <a
href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/Oregon?tid=informline">Oregon</a>'s
Siletz reservation.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:5.0pt;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:
5.0pt;margin-left:0in;text-autospace:none'><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt'>4. <a
href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/Siberia?tid=informline">Eastern
Siberia</a>, where a high proportion of the 23 known tongues are unrelated to
any other languages in the world.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:5.0pt;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:
5.0pt;margin-left:0in;text-autospace:none'><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt'>Language can reveal a lot about how a culture
organizes information. In the Paraguayan Lengua language, for example, the word
"11" means literally "arrived at the foot, one," meaning
"counted 10 fingers plus one toe." The word for "20" means
"finished the feet."<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:5.0pt;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:
5.0pt;margin-left:0in;text-autospace:none'><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt'>In <st1:place w:st="on">Siberia</st1:place>'s Nivkh
language, each number can be said 26 ways, depending on what is being counted.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:5.0pt;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:
5.0pt;margin-left:0in;text-autospace:none'><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt'>About 80 percent of the world's people speak 83
languages, while about 3,500 languages are spoken by just 0.2 percent of the
world's population. Attempts to commune with those minorities can turn
unintentionally comedic, said Gregory Anderson, co-director of the Enduring Voices
project.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:5.0pt;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:
5.0pt;margin-left:0in;text-autospace:none'><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt'>Talking to a woman who is one of the 20 remaining
Bardi speakers in Australia, Anderson once mispronounced an "r,"
which resulted in him asking, "What kangaroo are you from?" instead
of "What country are you from?"<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:5.0pt;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:
5.0pt;margin-left:0in;text-autospace:none'><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt'>No interpreter was needed to understand the Bardi
laughter that followed.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial'>Gary
K. McCone</span></font><font face=Arial><span style='font-family:Arial'><br>
</span></font><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:
Arial'>Associate Director, Information Systems</span></font><font face=Arial><span
style='font-family:Arial'><br>
</span></font><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:
Arial'>National Agricultural Library</span></font><font face=Arial><span
style='font-family:Arial'><br>
</span></font><st1:Street w:st="on"><st1:address w:st="on"><font size=2
face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial'>10301 Baltimore
Avenue</span></font></st1:address></st1:Street><font face=Arial><span
style='font-family:Arial'><br>
</span></font><st1:place w:st="on"><st1:City w:st="on"><font size=2 face=Arial><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial'>Beltsville</span></font></st1:City><font
size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial'>, <st1:State
w:st="on">Maryland</st1:State> <st1:PostalCode w:st="on">20705-2351</st1:PostalCode></span></font></st1:place>
<br>
<font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial'>(301)
504-5018</span></font><font face=Arial><span style='font-family:Arial'><br>
</span></font><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:
Arial'>Fax. (301) 504-6968</span></font><font face=Arial><span
style='font-family:Arial'> </span></font><o:p></o:p></p>
<p><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial'>"We
live in a moment of history where change is so speeded up that we begin to see
the present only when it is already disappearing." -- R. D. Laing</span></font><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
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