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<p class="MsoNormal">New York Today: Our Disappearing Languages<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">New York Today<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">By ALEXANDRA S. LEVINE JUNE 21, 2016<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Ross Perlin, master linguist. Credit Sara Krulwich/The New York Times<o:p></o:p></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal">Updated, 10:22 a.m.<o:p></o:p></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal">Aloha kakahiaka ma kēia Poʻalua nei!<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">That means “Good morning on this Tuesday” in Hawaiian.<o:p></o:p></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal">But you’ve probably never heard that, or any Hawaiian, at your corner bodega or on the subway platform.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Though New York City is one of the most linguistically diverse spots on Earth, Hawaiian — along with roughly half of the world’s six or seven thousand languages — has been in danger of going extinct.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">According to research from the Endangered Language Alliance, a local nonprofit that identifies, documents and teaches dying languages, many of the 600 to 800 languages spoken in New York are endangered.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">(Not a surprise: Spanish, Chinese, Russian, Korean and Haitian Creole are the Big Five in the five boroughs, after English.)<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The dwindling is less about numbers than it is about “intergenerational transmission”: Endangerment happens when children are no longer learning the language.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“It’s an ongoing process that’s akin to the loss of diversity of plant and animal species,” said the alliance’s assistant director, Ross Perlin.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Take Gottscheerisch, for example: It’s a variety of the Germanic language from what is now Slovenia.<o:p></o:p></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal">Some of the last speakers in the world live in Ridgewood, Queens, Mr. Perlin said.<o:p></o:p></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal">Or Judeo-Kashani, spoken by the Jewish peoples of the city of Kashan in Iran, which lives on here among just a few individuals around Great Neck and Roslyn on Long Island.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Himalayan languages are also hanging on by a thread in Elmhurst and Jackson Heights, Queens, and Ditmas Park, Brooklyn.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">And the Arawakan Garifuna language in the Bronx and Circassian languages in pockets of New Jersey.<o:p></o:p></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal">In many cases, a culture dies with its words.<o:p></o:p></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal">“Language is the bellwether,” Mr. Perlin said. “It’s hard to maintain the full richness, depth and complexity of a culture without its languages.”<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">You can learn more about vanishing mother tongues this evening at the New York Public Library. 6:30 p.m. [Free, register here]<o:p></o:p></p>
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