Robert Munro

/ Rob Munro

Endangered Languages

There are some 7,000 languages in the world, each uniquely encoding the history, culture and world view of its speakers. In a rapidly changing world, linguistic diversity contributes to our sense of community and identity. In a rapidly globalizing world, linguistic diversity contributes to the safeguarding of our cultural heritage.

It is currently estimated that at least half the world's languages will disappear by the end of the century, lost to emigration, economic rationalization, and too often, systematic discrimination.

What we be lost to the world if all trace of your language disappeared?

Most languages do not have a written form, so when an endangered language is no longer spoken it can take an entire culture with it. In too many cases these are the world's oldest living cultures - in Australia more than 90% of the 200+ aboriginal languages are either  dead or endangered.

These co-collaborating organizations (among many others) are worth supporting:

The Hans Rausing Endangered Languages Project (HRELP) HRELP provide grants for language documentation, train willing documentarians, and support a multimedia digital archive of endangered languages. I worked here for a couple of years.

The Endangered Language Fund (ELF)) ELF provide funding grants for language documentation and organizations / communites seeking to make use of documentation materials.

The Foundation for Endangered Languages (FEL)) FEL raises awareness of endangered languages, monitor linguistic policies and make information available about the preservation of endangered languages.