Imprensa: "Dying languages archived for future generations"

[Moderadores Etnolinguistica.Org]

A matéria, abaixo, publicada no *Telegraph* (Londres) do último dia 24 de
agosto, menciona uma língua amazônica: o Barasana

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/6081874/Dying-languages-archived-for-future-generations.html

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*Dying languages archived for future generations*
**
*A Cambridge University project to safeguard the world's 6,000 spoken
languages has been launched after it emerged half could die out within a
generation.*


The World Oral Literature Project aims to help cultures under threat from
globalisation create lasting records of their native languages.

Still in its inaugural year, the project led by Cambridge University's
Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, has already handed out around 10
grants to tribes from Mongolia to Nigeria - and the researchers admitted
traditional British languages such as Cornish and Gaelic are also at risk.

Experts are encouraging native people and anthropologists to capture myths,
folk songs chants and poems in their dying languages through multi-media
tools.

The collected oral literature is being compiled into a digital archive that
can be accessed on demand and will make the "nuts and bolts" of lost
cultures readily available.

One project involved making recordings of ceremonial chantings of the
Barasana language, spoken by just 1,890 people in the Vaupés Region of
Colombia.

Another grant paid to archive the vocal repertoire of Tashi Tsering, the
royal singer of Lo Monthang region in Mustang, Nepal.

Only 7,500 speak the Lowa language but researchers managed to record,
translate and transcribe 51 songs from the orally transmitted Kha Lu
repertoire.

Of the world's 6,000 natural languages, half will probably not survive for
another generation.

For many communities the transmission of oral literature, through ritual
texts, songs, word games and historical narrative, lies at the heart of
cultural practice.

But drastic socio-economic change and the rise of more dominant global
cultures are disrupting the transfer of native languages and risk
annihilating them completely.

Project leader Dr Mark Turin, a research associate in social anthropology,
said the issue of protecting endangered languages was beginning to resonate
with the public.

Dr Turin, of Cambridge University's Department of Social Anthropology, said:
"When a language becomes endangered so too does a cultural world view.

"We want to engage with indigenous people trying to document their myths and
folklore, which can be harder to find funding for if you are based outside
Western universities.

"If you are a Himalayan tribesman you are might not have access to a video
camera to record your shaman and elders.

"It's often the vernacular traditions of communities living on the margins
of nation states that are most at risk.

"By supporting communities to document their own cultures for the future,
and through working with engaged and committed scholars, our project is
responding to this urgent challenge."

Dr Turin said the project was concentrating on non-Western cultures where
natural disasters, famine and unstable government put indigenous languages
at greater risk.

But he admitted traditional British languages such as Cornish and Gaelic
were also under threat.

He said: "People often think it's often only tribal cultures that are under
threat.

"But all over Europe there are pockets of traditional communities and speech
forms that have become extinct.

"It is the domain of stronger nation states with better resources to look
after their own indigenous tongues, through Welsh language TV and Breton
literature.

"Given our small team we are focusing on the indigenous people who do not
have the funding to help themselves."

The first batch of archives material includes a recording of folk music of
the Lo Monthang region, Nepal, and ceremonial chanting in the Vaupés Region
of Colombia.

While funding is already secure for next year, the £100,000 pilot project is
currently seeking sustainable long-term grants to make it a permanent
fixture in the University's research agenda.
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