Applied Languages

    Posted by Jaiken Struck on February 10th, 2009

Why do languages disappear? Which parts of the world are most affected and what can be done to save them? The new edition of UNESCO’s Atlas of the World’s Languages in Danger of Disappearing, to be presented to the press at UNESCO Headquarters 19 February, on the eve of the International Mother Language Day (21 February), aims to answer these questions.

The Atlas is the result of a collaborative effort by a team of linguists under the direction of Australian Professor Christopher Moseley. Its production has been made possible thanks to a donation from Norway.

The Atlas is published for the first time as an interractive, digital tool with updated information on over 2,500 languages. It is available free of charge worldwide and will be continually updated. The Atlas will allow users to produce their own maps, based on a country or region, or to conduct searches by language category – extinct, critically endangered, severely endangered, definitively endangered.

Read more: Afrique en ligne

This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 10th, 2009 at 10:31 am and is filed under Endangered Languages. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.