ACHIEVABLE ACTIONS

The problem of saving languages must be attacked on a number of fronts:

(1)  The remaining speakers of endangered languages must be identified, and their priceless knowledge preserved.

(2)  The language resources must be properly archived, so that it remains an asset to be used by educators and the community in the future.

(3)  Researchers and educators must develop techniques to revitalize languages falling into disuse.

(4)  Programs must be established to instill in the youngsters a pride in their culture and a desire to learn and speak the native language.

(5)  Programs must be developed to teach the native language to non-speakers.

   OUR MISSION
Save Languages is a program of Cultural Collective, a nonprofit organization dedicated to assisting communities around the world to preserve their cultural heritage and to improve the wellbeing of their citizenry.  The mission of Save Languages toward that goal is to save endangered and indigenous languages.

   THE PROBLEM
It has been said that more than half of the remaining living languages of the world could become extinct in the coming decades.  Already, the last hundred years have seen the decimation of a huge number of the languages once spoken by humanity... and new languages fall into extinction every year as their last remaining speakers die out.  The worst situation occurs when a language becomes extinct without ever having been properly documented.  Such languages are truly gone forever. Whereas a documented language that ceases to have any native speakers can always be studied or even revived, undocumented languages disappear from the face of the earth... never to return.

The number of people out in the field currently documenting endangered languages is woefully insufficient to preserve even a tiny fraction of those languages facing immediate peril.  While there is a great need for trained anthropologists and linguists to do detailed studies on the endangered cultures and languages, we have literally run out of time for them to get to their work.  There is a dire and immediate need to put teams of people on the ground to film and record these languages before it is too late.  Detailed study can follow.  But for now, all speakers of undocumented and under-documented endangered tongues should be thoroughly interviewed as soon as humanly possible.