"Saving California Languages"
Katharine Whittmore is a journalist whose work has been published in many of the country's leading magazines. While editing "American Retrospective Series", she became interested in the loss of Native American cultures and their languages. She was sad and alarmed by the rapid disappearance in this century if indigenous languages not only in America, but worldwide. She believes that 90% of world's language will become extinct by the century's close. In "Saving California Languages", Katharine relate in details how California Advocates are trying to save, teach, and protect indigenous languages. The California Advocates sponsors the Master-Apprentice Language Learning Program, which brings together a few dedicated advocates, surviving speakers of scattered, nearly extinct tribal languages and students wishing to learn the languages. The emphasis of participants in these programs is not to record, and analyzes a language, but to learn, absorb, preserve, and pass it on, along with whatever remnants of culture is left.
Carol Korb a graduate of Humboldt and Leanne Hilton a linguistic professor of University of California at Berkeley. They will visit three Master-Apprentice teams in central California, to see how they are faring.
The Masters are usually elder members of a tribe, often one of a handful of speakers left.
The Apprentices are mostly younger adults.
An apprentice of Yowlumni named Matt
The apprentice will learn the language which takes about 500 hours of intense instruction and then teach it to a group of tribal children. Those children will grow up and hand down their knowledge to the next generation words and words of values and culture.
About 90% of all worlds' languages are considered threatened including Australian aboriginal dialects and even Basque an
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