Linguists Scramble To Save The World's Languages (fwd link)

[Phillip E Cash Cash]

Linguists Scramble To Save The World's Languages

February 21, 2010
By Richard Solash

Radio Free Europe

When Doctor Gregory Anderson and Doctor K. David Harrison set off in
2003 to a few remote villages in Russia's eastern Tomsk Oblast, they
took only the bare essentials: toothbrushes, socks, soap, plus their
microphones, video cameras, audio recorders, and linguistics
textbooks.

What brought them to this isolated corner of central Siberia was a
business conference -- of sorts: a series of meetings with the less
than 25 remaining speakers of Middle Chulym, or Os.

Anderson and Harrison are the two linguists behind the Living Tongues
Institute for Endangered Languages. A U.S.-based nonprofit, it is one
of a handful of initiatives spearheaded by linguists who are
scrambling to save the world's endangered tongues. Experts predict
that by the end of the century, half of the world's 6,700 languages
will be extinct.

Access full article below:
http://www.rferl.org/content/Linguists_Scramble_To_Save_The_Worlds_Languages/1964101.html

Article contains media sample of Vasiliy Gabov speaking Middle Chulym.