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Science Quickly

How to Save Indigenous Languages

Science Quickly

Scientific American

Science

4.2639 Ratings

🗓️ 27 January 2024

⏱️ 11 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

From Papua New Guinea to the Andaman Islands, Indigenous languages are under threat. An Indian linguist helped preserve one language family. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0

Understanding the human body is a team effort. That's where the Yachtel group comes in.

0:05.8

Researchers at Yachtolt have been delving into the secrets of probiotics for 90 years.

0:11.0

Yachtold also partners with nature portfolio to advance gut microbiome science through the global grants for gut health, an investigator-led research program.

0:20.1

To learn more about Yachtolt, visit yawc.co.jot.com.j, that's y-A-K-U-L-T-C-O-J-P.

0:28.4

When it comes to a guide for your gut, count on Yacolt.

0:35.9

You're listening to a celebration in the Levenoffie village in the remote highlands of the island nation of Papua, New Guinea.

0:43.3

I was here with our Scientific American video crew last year to make a documentary.

0:50.3

I and my co-producer Caso Harper didn't know what any of these words meant.

0:55.0

But as the entire village, men, women, kids, grannies, swung their hips, waved branches,

1:02.0

and sang in this beautiful heartfelt chorus, we knew intuitively that we were being welcomed.

1:08.0

After all of the singing, we were invited to partake in a moo-moo. It's this delicious

1:13.5

feast that's made from wrapping meats and vegetables and spices in banana leaves and then cooking

1:18.5

them in this massive earth oven with steam and hot stones. Finding myself here, in an island nation

1:26.4

that's home to more than 300 tribes and about 850 different languages,

1:30.3

was one of the most remarkable experiences of my entire life.

1:34.3

Papua New Guinea also happens to be the most linguistically diverse place on Earth.

1:38.3

But that incredible diversity is declining.

1:42.3

Half of the roughly 7,000 languages spoken today could be gone by the end of the century.

1:48.0

And Papua New Guinea, which hosts more than 10% of the world's languages,

1:53.0

is now finding its own linguistic diversity under threat.

1:56.0

After this experience, I had to learn more.

2:00.0

Where have we lost languages in other parts of the world and how have they been forgotten?

...

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