David Harrison, Greg Anderson, and Ganesh Murmu consult with Apatani speaker Vijay Punyo.

Photograph by Chris Rainier

As we have entered the 21st century, indigenous communities around the globe have been using modern technology in earnest to help maintain and even revitalize their threatened and dying languages and cultures. 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 younger generations speaking and understanding the words and stories of their 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 journey the planet in the next five years 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 placed in communities.