Enduring Voices Project

Latin, at one point in history was one of the most common languages. Latin is now an extinct language, what could this mean for any modern present language? I read the article "Lost" Language Found by Anonymous.  Nearly 80% of the worlds population speaks only about 1% of its language's. The language and the knowledge, that went with that language die when the last person who spoke it passes.

The Enduring Voices project went on a expedition to northern India to study two rural languages and found a "new" language called Koro. Although Koro isn't really new it's new to linguists, and it became one of the 6,909 known living languages. The distressing part of this discovery is that Koro is only spoken by 800 people very few of which are under the age of 20. This language is practically dead, most linguists consider half of the worlds 6,909 languages endangered. 

After i read this article I looked up the Enduring voices project. They're connected to national geographic.The goal of the Enduring Voices Project is to "Document endangered languages and prevent language extinction by identifying the most crucial areas where languages are endangered and embarking on expeditions." This is probably one of the coolest jobs I've ever heard of. These people travel to some of the most exotic locations on earth to look for and write about endangered, and new languages. The linguists who journey on these expeditions are extremely gifted. They can pick up what knowledge the languages hold just be listening to them and analyzing them.

Being a linguist hasn't always been a career option. If it had been maybe we wouldn't have so many lost  languages or have so many ancient languages that we don't know and possibly never will know and understand.  This career doesn't just preserve language it preserves life. Not that linguists are saving lives they are just preserving lifestyles. They are preserving the older ways of living that may be forgotten when the language goes extinct. The Enduring Voices Project makes me think of the poem "Forgotten Language" by Shel Silverstein: 

"Once I spoke the language of the flowers,
Once I understood each word the caterpillar said,
Once I smiled in secret at the gossip of the starlings,
And shared a conversation with the housefly
in my bed.
Once I heard and answered all the questions
of the crickets,
And joined the crying of each falling dying
flake of snow,
Once I spoke the language of the flowers. . . .
How did it go?
How did it go?" 

If we weren't working on preserving languages future generations could be placing one of our modern languages in the place of Silversteins and saying to themselves, "how did it go, how did it go."