Extinct languages saved by work of eccentric linguist (fwd link)

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Extinct languages saved by work of eccentric linguist

By Juliana Barbassa
ASSOCIATED PRESS

9:30 a.m. February 16, 2008

DAVIS – The first time Jose Freeman heard his tribe's lost language through the
crackle of a 70-year-old recording, he cried.

“My ancestors were speaking to me,” said Freeman of the sounds captured when
American Indians still inhabited California's Salinas Valley. “It was like
coming home.”

While the last native speaker of Salinan died almost half a century ago, more
and more indigenous people are finding their extinct or endangered tongues, one
word or song at a time, thanks to a late linguist and some University of
California, Davis scholars who are working to transcribe his life's obsession.

Driven to record the native languages he saw disappearing all around him, John
Peabody Harrington spent four decades gathering more than 1 million pages of
phonetic notations on languages spoken by tribes from Alaska to South America.
When the technology became available, he supplemented his written record with
audio recordings – first using wax cylinders, then aluminum discs.

Full article link below:
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/state/20080216-0930-ca-voicesfromthegrave.html