Indigenous languages dying - and fast (fwd link)

[phil cash cash]

Indigenous languages dying - and fast

By Tara Ravens
AAP

March 13, 2009 05:41pm

AUSTRALIA is losing more indigenous languages than anywhere else in the world
and it's happening at a faster rate, a researcher says.

Jeanie Bell, a lecturer at the Batchelor Institute of Indigenous Tertiary
Education's Centre for Australian Languages and Linguistics, said as few as 20
of the 230 Aboriginal languages spoken 200 years ago were still alive today.

"Recent figures show that we're in a worse situation than anywhere else at the
moment," she said.

"We're losing more language than anywhere else in the world at a faster rate,
and the decline across the globe is pretty dramatic."

Last month, the UN's cultural agency UNESCO said some 2,500 of the 6,900
languages spoken in the world were endangered.

Access full article below:
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,27574,25181841-29277,00.html