Enduring Voices
Photograph by Chris Rainier
K. David Harrison is a linguist and leading specialist in the study of endangered languages. He is an associate professor at Swarthmore College. Dr. Gregory D. S. Anderson is a linguist who is director of the Living Tongues Institute for Endangered Languages, a nonprofit organization dedicated to the documentation, revitalization, and maintenance of endangered languages. Together they lead Enduring Voices, a project dedicated to documenting endangered languages and preventing language extinction by identifying the most crucial areas where languages are threatened and embarking on expeditions to assist indigenous communities in their efforts to revitalize and maintain their languages. Chris Rainier, a renowned documentary photographer, joins them in communicating stories of the remaining natural wilderness and indigenous cultures around the globe.
"The island nation of Papua New Guinea represents the greatest single concentration of linguistic diversity on Earth, with 830 listed languages identified thus far and an unknown number remaining to be scientifically documented. Part of Papua New Guinea also falls within a language hot spot. Without it, no survey of the world’s languages or understanding of the current global process of language extinction would be complete.
“During a three-week trip, the Enduring Voices team recorded interviews with speakers of 11 indigenous languages of Papua New Guinea. These languages embody the various forces that drive language threat and endangerment, and language shift.
“Our expedition took us to East Sepik Province, where we encountered several small endangered-language communities. These local Karawari region languages lack [a presence in] teaching materials and books, and many people blame this for the rising dominance of pidgin. In many villages, there is only passive knowledge of the ancestral Pondo-family languages Yokoim and Karim, while in others, not even passive knowledge of the heritage tongue among schoolchildren is found. It may be too late for the Karim language to rebound (Christina Yimasinant, pictured here, is a speaker), but the Yokoim language can still be maintained in some of the communities with adequate revitalization efforts.
“People would be outraged if we tore down the Pyramids of Giza or the Notre Dame Cathedral, but languages are much more ancient and complex and even more impressive as monuments to human genius.”
—K. David Harrison, National Geographic Fellow
Related Book Excerpt: The Last Speakers
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