[EDLING:2417] Keeping Native tongues out of the pickling jar

[Francis M. Hult]

Berkeleyan

Keeping Native tongues out of the pickling jar

By Barry Bergman

After decades devoted to breathing life into dying California languages, 
linguist Leanne Hinton views her profession's value as far more than academic.

Leanne Hinton first heard the faint cry of dying languages at the bottom of 
Havasu Canyon, a 3,000-foot-deep cut in the Colorado Plateau beloved by 
backpackers for its clear, towering waterfalls. A remote branch of the Grand 
Canyon reachable only by foot, helicopter, or pack animal, this ancient chasm 
is home to the 650-member Havasupai tribe, which has inhabited the village of 
Supai for eight centuries. When Hinton, then a Berkeley undergrad, hiked the 
eight-mile trail down to the village in the summer of 1964, the Havasupais had 
no system of written language.

Full story
http://www.berkeley.edu/news/berkeleyan/2007/03/07_Hinton.shtml