KUOW: Tribes turning to technology to preserve language

Friday, February 24, 2012  

"Usually it is good news when the Northwest appears on a top five list. But this one is not. Our region ranks near the top of a list of global hotspots for disappearing languages. The reason is that speakers of Native American languages are dwindling. Now digital technology is coming to the rescue of some ancient tongues.

Members of the Siletz tribe on the Oregon coast take pride in a language they say "is as old as time itself." But today, you can count the number of fluent speakers on one hand. Bud Lane is one of them.

He says, "We had linguists that had come in and done assessments of our people and our language and they labeled it -- I'll never forget this term -- 'moribund' meaning it was headed for the ash heap of history.""

Get the Story:
'Talking Dictionaries' Help Preserve Endangered Tribal Languages (KUOW 2/23)