Dying tongues (fwd link)

[Phillip E Cash Cash]

Dying tongues

3/17/2011
Latin American Press

Migration, industry and discrimination endanger indigenous languages and
cultural heritage.

Half of the 6,000 languages spoken on Earth are facing extinction, according
to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization,
UNESCO. Hundreds of indigenous languages across Latin America could die out
— some within a generation — as migration, industry, encroachment on native
lands and cultural integration continues on an ever-increasing scale.

Endangered languages include Quechua — spoken up and down the Andes and the
most widely spoken indigenous language of South America — Mapuche in Chile
and Argentina, Garifuna in Honduras, K´iche Maya in Guatemala and scores of
languages in the Amazon basin, according to UNESCO´s Atlas of the World´s
Languages in Danger.
In southern Costa Rica, only 57 people speak Teribe, mostly village elders.

Access full article below:
http://lapress.org/articles.asp?art=6331
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