Keeping dying languages alive (fwd link)

[Phil Cash Cash]

Keeping dying languages aliveSmithsonian keeps recorded voices, documents,
more

By Guy Gugliotta, Special to The Washington Post

Published: January 26, 2014, 6:00 AM


Daryl Baldwin learned about the Smithsonian's National Anthropological
Archives when he was trying to find out more about his Native American
heritage and the language of his tribe, the Miami of Oklahoma.

He was 28 and working construction in Ohio when he came across some Miami
words his late grandfather had written in his personal papers. Baldwin knew
nothing of the language except some ancestral names, but the words piqued
his interest. There were no Miami speakers left, but a friend mentioned the
archives, an immense hoard of recorded voices, documents and other
materials describing more than 250 languages from all over the world.

The archives had been accumulating for more than 150 years, the findings of
scholars, explorers, soldiers and travelers, and was now stored in a vast
warehouse on a grassy campus in Suitland, Md. It included copious material
on about 200 Native American languages, many of them endangered or with no
remaining native speakers.

Access full article below:
http://www.columbian.com/news/2014/jan/26/keeping-dying-languages-alive/
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