Tribe Revives Language on Verge of Extinction (fwd link)

[Phillip E Cash Cash]

*Tribe Revives Language on Verge of Extinction*

By KIRK JOHNSON
Published: August 3, 2012
[multimedia]

SILETZ, Ore. — Local native languages teeter on the brink of oblivion all
over the world as the big linguistic sweepstakes winners like English,
Spanish or Mandarin ride a surging wave of global communications.

But the forces that are helping to flatten the landscape are also creating
new ways to save its hidden, cloistered corners, as in the unlikely
survival of Siletz Dee-ni. An American Indian language with only about five
speakers left — once dominant in this part of the West, then relegated to
near extinction — has, since earlier this year, been shouting back to the
world: Hey, we’re talking. (In Siletz that would be naa-ch’aa-ghit-’a.)

“We don’t know where it’s going to go,” said Bud Lane, a tribe member who
has been working on the online Siletz Dee-ni Talking Dictionary for nearly
seven years, and recorded almost all of its 10,000-odd audio entries
himself. In its first years the dictionary was password protected, intended
for tribe members.

Access full article below:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/04/us/siletz-language-with-few-voices-finds-modern-way-to-survive.html?_r=1

(via Indigenous Tweets)
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