Friday, December 02, 2005

Languages Lost and Found

One of our readers pointed out the website for the National Yiddish Book Center ("Rescuing Books, Inspiring Readers"). He read about it at the AnglicansOnline website. Why did the Anglicans want to point it out? "Linguists predicted in the 1970s that the language would be dead in their lifetimes; today it is alive and well, the object of serious study and active use by a growing community of people throughout the world."
       In the Native American West, the question of language preservation, of keeping cultural traditions alive, is very well understood. An organization based at UNM is the Linguistic Institute for Native Americans. There are a lot of good links here and there on the web, such as at the Endangered Language Foundation at Yale; at Native American Language Net; articles from Tribal College Journal, "Native American Language Renewal" and "Resource Guide: Renewal of Indigenous Languages", etc.
       And yes, we do have the book by the man who created the Yiddish Book Center: Outwitting history : the amazing adventures of a man who rescued a million Yiddish books by Aaron Lansky. Outwitting history... such a great notion.

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