Linguist races to save Aboriginal language (fwd link)

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Linguist races to save Aboriginal languageKANAKANAVU:National Taiwan
University’s Sung Li-may is working with the few remaining native speakers
of one Aboriginal language to document it for preservation

By Peter Enav  /  AP, DAKANUA

Her eyes lit bright with concentration, Taiwanese linguist Sung Li-may
(宋麗梅) leans in expectantly as one of the planet’s last 10 speakers of the
Kanakanavu language shares his hopes for the future.

“I am already very old,” says 80-year-old Mu’u Ka’angena, a leathery-faced
man with a tough, sinewy body and deeply veined hands.

A light rain falls onto the thatched roof of the communal bamboo hut, and
smoke from a dying fire drifts lazily up the walls, wafting over deer
antlers, boar jawbones and ceremonial swords that decorate the interior
like trophies from a forgotten time.

“Every day I think: Can our language be passed down to the next generation?
It is the deepest wish in my heart that it can be,” he says.

Access full article below:
http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/archives/2013/01/10/2003552202
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