Indigenous Languages Face Extinction

posted on October 2nd, 2011 in Indigenous Rights

 87-year-old Cristina Calderon is the last speaker of the Yamana language. Three of her ancestors met Charles Darwin and the King and Queen of England. She lives in Puerto Williams, Navarino Island, near the southern tip of Patagonia

Indigenous Languages in Final Throes

Languages like Kiliwua in Mexico, Amanayé in Brazil, Záparo in Ecuador and Mashco Piro in Peru are on the verge of disappearing. Their extinction would be a tragedy for humanity, warn linguists.

 Oct 2, 2011

MEXICO CITY, (Tierramérica).- Hundreds of languages disappeared from Latin America and the Caribbean over the past 500 years, and many of the more than 600 that have survived could face the same fate in the not-so-distant future.

United Nations agencies and many experts maintain that it is an avoidable tragedy, but there are those who see it as the inherent fate of almost every language…

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