NPR News: Endangered languages are dying rapidly. Linguists are trying to save some of them

Endangered languages are dying rapidly. Linguists are trying to save some of them
By the end of the century, more than 40% of the world's estimated 7,000 languages are in danger of disappearing. Those include indigenous languages in the Amazon. The United Nations also estimates that an Indigenous language dies every two weeks. Today, we focus on two endangered languages spoken in the Vaupés region of northwest Amazonia: Desano and Siriano. Linguist Wilson de Lima Silva at the University of Arizona has been working with the community for a decade in an effort to document the language for future generations. Check out the book Global Language Justice, co-edited by Professor Lydia Liu. Want to hear more Indigenous or linguistics stories? Make your opinion heard by emailing us at shortwave@npr.org! Listen to every episode of Short Wave sponsor-free and support our work at NPR by signing up for Short Wave+ at plus.npr.org/shortwave.

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