As we have entered the 21st century indigenous communities around the globe have in earnest been using modern technology to help maintain and even revitalize their threatened and dying languages and culture. Thousands of tribal communities from East Africa, to the outback of Australia, to the forests of the Northwest Pacific Coast are creating educational programs to record the stories and oral traditions of their elderly last speakers. Using cameras, film, and audio, community members are creating powerful archives of material, as well as elaborate word dictionaries. Passing the knowledge along to the younger generation has become of paramount importance and urgency. Without the younger generations speaking and understanding the words and stories of the ancestors, the language dies. And when the language dies the culture dies.
Under the National Geographic Society's Enduring Voices Project, the team will journey to meet with last speakers, listen to their stories, and document their languages with film, pictures, and audio to help communities preserve their knowledge of species, landscapes, and traditions before they vanish. The project is a bold program that will in the next five years journey the planet with an urgent mission to help document the last speakers of endangered languages. In addition, the Enduring Voices Project, where invited, will assist indigenous communities in their efforts to revitalize and maintain their threatened languages. By using appropriate written materials, video, still photography, audio recorders, and computers with language software, as well as access through the Internet where possible, the Enduring Voices Project will help empower communities to preserve ancient traditions with modern technology. Please stay tuned for updates on where the Language Technology Kits have been have been placed in communities.
