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<h1>Vigil for the Vanishing Tongue </h1>
<div class="byline">By <a title="More Articles by Mary Jo Murphy" href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/m/mary_jo_murphy/index.html?inline=nyt-per"><font color="#000066">MARY JO MURPHY</font></a>
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<p>IF you want to tell someone where to "go" in the dying language of the Monchak, you'd better have an intimate knowledge of the river currents in Mongolia, because that's how the verb "go" is expressed in Monchak: upstream or downstream a bit or a bunch, never mind that there's no stream in sight, or maybe there are a lot of streams going every which way. In Tofa, a dying Siberian language, that reptile you hope not to step on as you "go" is called a ground fish, not the slithering terror we know as a snake. "Different languages force their speakers to pay attention to different things," says K. David Harrison, a linguist at Swarthmore and author of "When Languages Die: The Extinction of the World's Languages and the Erosion of Human Knowledge," published this year by Oxford University Press. 
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<p>Dr. Harrison and his colleagues on National Geographic's Enduring Voices project identified five regions last week with the largest concentration of languages facing extinction. In addition to eastern Siberia, they are northern Australia, central South America, the upper Pacific coastal zone of North America, and Oklahoma and the Southwest United States.
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<p>"A dictionary is a monument to human genius," says Dr. Harrison, and it is the erosion of that monument that is his chief lament when, about every two weeks, one of the world's 7,000 or so languages falls out of use. It's not that you can't express any idea in any language, he says, but rather that the "information packaging" differs with each language. Certainly thinking of a snake as a fish out of water is unique packaging.
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<p>Dr. Harrison offers the following sampling from a vanishing world dictionary. <span class="bold">MARY JO MURPHY </span></p>
<p>•</p>
<p><span class="italic">From Monchak, which has fewer than 1,000 speakers:</span></p>
<p><span class="bold">choktaar</span> to go upstream or in a direction opposite the current in the nearest river</p>
<p><span class="bold">badaar </span>to go downstream or in a direction that matches the direction of the current in the nearest river </p>
<p><span class="bold">kezer</span> to cut, or to go in a direction that would be cross-stream, based on the nearest river</p>
<p><span class="italic">From Rotokas, a language of Papua New Guinea with about 4,300 speakers. Rotokas doubles parts of words to derive new meanings:</span></p>
<p><span class="bold">tapa</span> to hit </p>
<p><span class="bold">tapatapa</span> to hit repeatedly </p>
<p><span class="bold">kopi</span> a dot </p>
<p><span class="bold">kopikopi</span> spotted </p>
<p><span class="bold">kavau</span> to bear a child </p>
<p><span class="bold">kavakavau</span> to bear many children </p>
<p><span class="italic">From Eleme, a language of Nigeria with 58,000 speakers. Eleme doubles part of a verb to negate it:</span></p>
<p><span class="bold">moro</span> he saw you </p>
<p><span class="bold">momoro</span> he did not see you </p>
<p><span class="bold">rekaju</span> we are coming </p>
<p><span class="bold">rekakaju</span> we are not coming</p>
<p><span class="italic">From Nivkh, a language of Siberia with fewer than 300 speakers. Nivkh uses different words for numbers depending on what is being counted:</span></p>
<p><span class="bold">men </span>two, if counting people</p>
<p><span class="bold">merakh </span>two, if counting thin, flat objects like leaves</p>
<p><span class="bold">mirsh </span>two, if counting paired things like skis or mittens</p>
<p><span class="bold">mer </span>two, if counting batches of dried fish</p>
<p><span class="bold">mim</span> two, if counting boats</p>
<p><span class="bold">mor</span> two, if counting animals</p>
<p><span class="italic">From the Marovo language of the Solomon Islands, with about 8,000 speakers. The Marovo people are especially keen observers of fish behavior: </span></p>
<p><span class="bold">ukuka</span> the behavior of groups of fish when individuals drift, circle and float as if drunk</p>
<p><span class="bold">udumu</span> a large school of fish so dense as to seem like a single object </p>
<p><span class="bold">sakoto</span> quiet, almost motionless resting of schools of certain fish, which fishermen say look like a gathering of mourners</p>
<p><span class="italic">From the Pomo language of California, with fewer than 10 speakers. The Pomo excelled at basket weaving, hunting and fur trading, and count with sticks. Dr. Harrison quoted an anthropologist early in the 20th century who admired the Pomo ability to calculate large sums: "Their arithmetical faculties must have been highly developed." Below 20, the Pomo had unique names for numbers:
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<p><span class="bold">k'áli</span> one</p>
<p><span class="italic">For 20 and above, the Pomo combine number names with "stick" or "big stick." For 61, the Pomo would say xómk'a-xày k'áli, combining xómk'a, meaning three, with xày, meaning stick, and k'áli. Some Pomo numbers:
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<p><span class="bold">20</span> one stick</p>
<p><span class="bold">61</span> three sticks and one </p>
<p><span class="bold">100</span> five sticks</p>
<p><span class="bold">400</span> one big stick</p>
<p><span class="bold">500</span> one big stick and five sticks</p>
<p><span class="bold">4,000</span> 10 big sticks</p>
<p><span class="italic">From Tofa, in Siberia, with fewer than 30 speakers. Tofa uses a 13-month lunar calendar with months named for hunter-gatherer activities:</span></p>
<p><span class="bold">teshkileer ay</span> Roughly February, or hunting animals on skis month</p>
<p><span class="bold">ytalaar ay</span> March, hunting with dogs month</p>
<p><span class="bold">eki tozaar ay</span> April, good birch-bark-collecting month</p>
<p><span class="bold">aynaar ay</span> August, digging edible lily bulbs month</p>
<p><span class="bold">chary eter ay</span> October, rounding up castrated male reindeer month </p>
<p><span class="italic">As nomadic reindeer herders, the Tofa have quite a few words relating to reindeer:</span> </p>
<p><span class="bold">myndyzhak</span> a 2-year-old female reindeer that is ready for first mating</p>
<p><span class="bold">chary</span> a 5-year-old male castrated reindeer that can be ridden</p></div><br>
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