Published Friday, 5 February 2010, BBC News
The death of the last speaker of an ancient language in India's
Andaman Islands highlights the fact that half of the world's 7,000
languages are in danger of disappearing. Linguist K David Harrison
argues that we still have much to learn from vanishing languages.
My journey as a scientist exploring the world's vanishing languages has
taken me from the Siberian forests to the Bolivian Altiplano, from a
McDonald's in Michigan to a trailer park in Utah. In all these places
I've listened to last speakers - dignified elders - who hold in their
minds a significant portion of humanity's intellectual wealth.