Trying to save vanishing languages (fwd link)

[Phillip E Cash Cash]

Posted on Tue, Jun. 1, 2010

Trying to save vanishing languages
American Indians turn to recordings at American Philosophical Society.

By Stephan Salisbury
Inquirer Culture Writer
USA

In the bright morning sun, Larry Aitken stood in the green Jefferson Garden
next to the American Philosophical Society's library, offering up his Ojibwe
words and his sacred pipe to infuse the conference with truth and purpose.
Pungent smoke curled into the air.

Aitken - dressed in a vivid red shirt with a black bear on the back -
presented an unusual image in the heart of the busy city. But for the 70 or
so people gathered on South Fifth Street across from Independence Square,
the Sacred Pipe Ceremony was both natural and essential.

Last month, representatives from 10 tribal communities across the United
States, plus archivists and scholars, gathered for a two-day conference here
to discuss how to make practical use of the philosophical society's vast
collection of historic Native American materials, including about 113,000
photographic images and more than 1,000 hours of recorded American Indian
languages.



Read more:
http://www.philly.com/inquirer/magazine/20100601_Trying_to_save_vanishing_languages.html#ixzz0pdximaoE
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