Vanishing Languages

                                 
One language dies every 14 days. By the next century nearly half of the roughly 7,000 languages spoken on Earth will likely disappear, as communities abandon native tongues in favor of English, Mandarin, or Spanish. What is lost when a language goes silent?

                                        LANGUAGE
                                      CHEMEHUEVI
“I speak it inside my heart”Johnny Hill, Jr.Arizona

Johnny Hill, Jr., of Parker, Arizona, is one of the last

 speakers of Chemehuevi, an endangered Native American

 language: “It’s like a bird losing feathers. You see one float

 by, and there it goes—another word gone.”

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------                LANGUAGE

  EUCHEE

“We are still here.”— Maxine Wildcat Barnett (left) and Josephine Wildcat Bigler, Oklahoma

Maxine Wildcat Barnett (at left) and Josephine Wildcat

 Bigler say their grandmother always demanded that they

 speak their native language. “As long as you live in my

 house,” she said, “you speak Euchee!” Here the Wildcat

 sisters visit their grandmother’s grave in a cemetery behind

 Pickett Chapel, a Methodist church in Sapulpa, Oklahoma.

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