Indians gather to save languages (fwd link)

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Indians gather to save languages

By Matt O'Brien
Contra Costa Times
Article Launched: 06/13/2008 06:19:38 PM PDT

BERKELEY — The first time Barbara Pineda came into contact with a linguist, she
was wary about what he wanted.

An academic researcher from UC Berkeley was visiting her grandmother's home in
Mendocino County in the early 1960s, taking notes as her family shared words
from their Northern Pomo language.

"I thought he came to steal it," said Pineda, who was about 8 years old at the
time. "My grandmother called me over and said, 'It's OK. He's a friend.'"

Pineda, 53, is now trying to salvage the endangered language that her
grandmother helped document decades ago. She is one of dozens of California
Indians who gathered in Berkeley from across the state this week in hopes they
can learn from the university, and from each other, how to preserve languages
threatened with extinction.

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