Sixty Languages at Risk of Extinction in Mexico=?UTF-8?Q?=E2=80=94Can_?=They Be Kept Alive? (fwd link)

[Phillip E Cash Cash]

*Sixty Languages at Risk of Extinction in Mexico—Can They Be Kept Alive?*
Online dictionaries and smartphones may help with preservation, experts say.

Christine Dell'Amore
National Geographic
PUBLISHED APRIL 10, 2014

Of the 143 native languages in Mexico, 60 are at risk of being silenced
forever, linguists say.

One language, Ayapenaco, is spoken fluently by just two elderly menwho
aren't even on speaking terms. Another indigenous language, Kiliwa, is
spoken by only 36 people.

While 60 of Mexico's native tongues are at risk, 21 are critically
endangered, with only a few elderly speakers left, according to a statement
released recently by Mexico's Centre of Research and Higher Studies in
Social Anthropology (CIESAS). (Read about vanishing languages in National
Geographic magazine.)

The languages most at risk in Mexico—including the Zapotec, the Chatino,
and the Seri tongues—are undergoing "rapid change" for a number of reasons,
says Lourdes de León Pasquel, a linguist at CIESAS. Among them are
"migration, social instability, [and] economic and ideological factors that
push speakers to adopt Spanish."

Access full article below:
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/04/140410-mexico-languages-speaking-cultures-world-zapotec/
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/ilat/attachments/20140414/622ab66d/attachment.htm>