Dying cultures have the last word: A journalist documents the alarming loss of languages around the world

Humboldt traveled to the cave where hundreds of the Atures were buried, weighed down his mules with some of their skeletons, then headed to a nearby village. There, the local people showed the foreigner a talking parrot that no one understood: It was the last living thing to speak the language of the Atures, the people whose bones Humboldt had collected. — John McMurtrie reviews Spoken Here by Mark Abley —Dying cultures have the last word: A journalist documents the alarming loss of languages around the world (SF Gate)

Via SciTechDaily, which introduces the article with an “English is a killer language” meme that the author of the book in question apparently discredits.

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