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Article: Having their say: with digital recorders and DVDs, young people are saving endangered languages.(FEATURE)
- Article from:
- Colorlines Magazine
- Article date:
- July 1, 2009
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2009 Color Lines Magazine. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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UNESCO LISTS ALMOST 2,500 LANGUAGES worldwide as "endangered," meaning they are at risk of falling out of use and even disappearing as fluent native speakers die and younger generations fail to take up the language. A bulk of endangered languages are the tongues of indigenous groups who have been colonized or encroached upon by a dominant culture and forced or coerced to give up their native language. In the past, students were beaten for speaking their language in strict boarding schools in the United States and Australia. More recently in parts of the U.S. and countless other regions world-wide, people feel cultural and economic pressure to switch to the dominant ...