Mexican Indigenous Language to Live on After Last Two Speakers Die (fwd link)

[Phillip E Cash Cash]

*Mexican Indigenous Language to Live on After Last Two Speakers Die
*
Published September 21, 2012
Fox News Latino

The indigenous Zoque-Ayapaneco language, once spoken by a vibrant minority
near Tabasco, Mexico, will vanish when the final two native speakers, both
in their 70s, pass away.

But it will live on a documentary, “Lengua Muerta,” which chronicles the
last of the 364 aboriginal dialects still surviving in Mexico.

The movie features Isidro Velazquez, 70, and Manuel Segovia, 77, who will
take to the grave a language widely spoken until the middle of the 20th
century.

“We’re beginning to investigate and we’re discovering that it is the
language that is vanishing most rapidly in Mexico and worldwide,” said
director Denisse Quintero. “It’s the one with the fewest speakers, just
two, and they’re elderly. When they die, it will practically cease to
exist.”

“It’s not a rescue, but rather it consists of creating an audiovisual
registry, a memory, so that other generations can have access to it, given
that it’s very difficult to rescue the language,” also explained producer
Laura Berron.

Read more:
http://latino.foxnews.com/latino/news/2012/09/21/indigenous-language-to-live-on-after-last-two-speakers-die/#ixzz277jxfeH9
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