Smithsonian joins U. to log tribal languages

Mixco's project has been in the exploratory phase since its beginning last September. The teams will act as audio archaeologists, uncovering legends and histories that have not been heard since they were recorded, according to Mixco.

"All Shoshone in the Great Basin area will uncover a huge library of their history," Mixco said.

The recordings will be digitally preserved and rendered archive-ready, which means greater access to those who want to learn more about Shoshone Indians and their language. With only about 20 percent of the tribe still speaking the language, Mixco estimates that the Shoshone dialect could be nonexistent within 20 or 25 years.

"Here's the question around the world: 'Are children learning the language?' " Mixco said. "If it's 'No,' then that's the death warrant."

In places like Hawaii and New Zealand, where there are larger communities of indigenous speakers, "language nests" have helped revive dying languages, Mixco said. The "grandparent generation" in these areas was organized into groups that included children, who were taught the language once spoken regularly by their elders.

It's estimated that more than 2,000 languages were once spoken throughout the Americas, with fewer than 200 remaining in North America and 450 in Latin America.

Worldwide, it's expected that 90 percent of all languages will not survive this century or that, best case, as many as 50 percent will die off, according the U. center.

"Linguists are racing against time to study and understand the languages spoken by small groups around the world before they are replaced by regional and national languages in the onslaught of globalization," Goddard said. "This effort is critical to our ability to understand the possibilities of human language in general and will be crucial to all future attempts to understand the basic principles that underlie all languages, including our own."

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