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(narrator) <i>Of the roughly 7,000 languages[br]spoken and signed on Earth,</i>

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<i>about 500 of them are currently[br]at risk of disappearing,</i>

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<i>as the number of native speakers dwindles.</i>

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<i>This is the story about one man[br]dispatching an army of volunteers</i>

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<i>to record these languages[br]before it's too late.</i>

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♪ (pleasant music) ♪

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My name is Daniel,[br]and I'm the co-founder and director

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<i>of Wikitongues, a non-profit powered</i>

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<i>by more than a thousand[br]volunteers around the world</i>

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<i>working to preserve, promote, and pass on</i>

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<i>every language to the next generation.</i>

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Every day, hundreds[br]of volunteers around the world

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are recording videos.

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(foreign language)

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(speaking in Tunica)

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<i>I help keep track of all of these videos</i>

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<i>as they're submitted,[br]so that they can be reused</i>

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<i>for educational and cultural purposes.</i>

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(subway and Street sounds)

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<i>New York is very important[br]to linguistic diversity.</i>

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<i>New York is, by most statistics,</i>

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<i>the most linguistically diverse[br]city in the world.</i>

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<i>There are as many as 800 languages</i>

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<i>spoken in and around the five boroughs.</i>

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<i>In many cases,[br]it can be easier for communities</i>

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<i>to maintain their languages here</i>

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<i>than it is to maintain[br]their languages at home.</i>

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(subway noise)

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<i>Today, we're gonna meet up[br]with Wikitongues volunteers</i>

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<i>who are going to be taking us[br]through different parts of New York.</i>

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♪ (cheerful music) ♪

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- So we're gonna speak Ilocano.[br]- Yeah, okay.

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Yeah!

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<i>Wikitongues focuses[br]on recording oral histories,</i>

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<i>which is a fancy way of saying</i>

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<i>talking about yourself and your culture.</i>

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<i>Sometimes people barely talk[br]about their language at all,</i>

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<i>and they just talk about their daily job,</i>

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<i>in their language, of course.</i>

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(subway noise)

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<i>Sometimes people talk about the history</i>

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<i>of their language and their culture.</i>

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(speaking Aruan Malay)

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My name is Elfie Goliat.[br]I will speak Aru language.

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(speaking Aruan Malay)

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(speaking Aruan Malay)

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<i>The Wikitongues approach is:[br]record everything and classify it later.</i>

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What I do is make sure[br]that all of that content

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gets tracked and archived,[br]so it doesn't get lost

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<i>and so it can be used[br]for posterity and in the long term.</i>

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(speaking in Bavarian)

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<i>Wikitongues has recorded[br]over 435 languages</i>

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<i>from over 70 countries.</i>

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(speaking Oshiwambo)

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<i>That number changes every day.</i>

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(speaking Haryanvi)

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<i>There are plenty of examples of languages[br]being brought back from the dead.</i>

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<i>There's Cornish, there's[br]Hebrew, there's Tunica.</i>

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<i>All of these languages[br]had one thing in common:</i>

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<i>when the last native speaker died,[br]there were materials</i>

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<i>for the cultural descendants[br]to bring them back.</i>

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<i>And so building an open archive</i>

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<i>of every language in the world[br]is not just a way</i>

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<i>of ensuring that people today can promote</i>

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<i>and teach their languages[br]to the next generation.</i>

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<i>It's a way of ensuring[br]that future generations</i>

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<i>can revive their languages[br]even if they go extinct.</i>