Death of a language (fwd link)

[phil cash cash]

Death of a language

Caille Millner
Monday, February 11, 2008

Marie Smith died in Alaska last month, and with her went the Eyak language.

For most of my readers - who probably speak nothing but English and a little
taco-store Spanish - at first glance this news will garner nothing more than a
sad shrug, a small feeling of loss, a wonder if NPR will rebroadcast that short
segment when Smith spoke a little of that unusual Native American tongue, with
its nasal intonations and its explosive sounds. So I wanted to talk a little
bit about what happens when a language dies, since we're going to watch so many
of them (90 percent of the world's 6,000 languages could be extinct by the next
century) die during our lifetimes.

Full article link below:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/02/11/EDGQUV5QT.DTL