WEBVTT

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(Speaking Wakhi) For each person
it' s important

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to preserve his or her own language.

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Because nowadays we are not able
to speak our language purely.

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(Speaking Mustang (Loke)
Now that I've been here

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for almost ten years

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I can say it depends on us,

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on our ability to guide our children
to speak our own language,

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our ability to make them aware

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of the importance
of their own language and culture

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The Endangered Language Alliance
is a nonprofit organization

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based here in New York City
and we work primarily

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with immigrant communities here
who speak endangered languages.

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(Music)

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There's many, many communities now,
especially over the last 20, 30 years,

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who have come to New York

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and have brought their own language

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that is being lost back home.

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We work with them
to document those languages

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and to also promote those languages

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and to try and better understand
how those languages are surviving

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and what their life,
the life of those languages,

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here in New York City.

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And we try and educate the public as well,
about the value of linguistic diversity

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and what language endangerment is.

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(Group reciting)

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In language we navigate the possibilities
we create with one another.

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And so if we respect the language we have,

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we respect ancestral mediums
and knowledge that come through us.

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The way this kind of started from a class
that I taught in CUNY nine years ago

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where I would bring students
from the Graduate Center around the city

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to work on fieldwork projects
with endangered languages.

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When I saw that there wa great interest 
n the part of the students

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and there was great interest,
more importantly,

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on the part of the community
and individuals,

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that was kind of what gave me
a feeling that it could work.

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That these are groups
that need to be brought together.

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You have communities
speaking endangered languages,

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you have linguists, you have other people

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who want to volunteer to helping promote
and understand these languages.

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I was lucky that I actually went to CUNY.

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This is linguistically, culturally,
ethnic, why this is diverse,

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and you can meet many people
there and then learn from them.

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If they want to work on a language
they have their resources inside.

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They have students from Croatia,

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there's students from India,

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there's students
from all parts of the world.

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(Boat horn)

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New York is really a uniquely place.

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We get immigration from all parts of the
world

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almost equally and

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there's very few cities in the

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world that can say that so

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we have very large and diverse African

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community a very large and diverse

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Himalayan community, Filipino community,

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European communities so in that sense I

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feel that New York City is definitely

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the most linguistically and ethnically
diverse city in the world.

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The endangered language Alliance

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helped produce this

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language map of Queens and anecdotal

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language map of Queens for a book called

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Nonstop Metropolis by Rebecca Solnit

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and Joshua Jelly-Schapiro.

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It's filled with fascinating different
atlases looking at

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all different aspects of the city and

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Queens because it's known for its

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linguistic diversity the zip code around

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Jackson Heights is the most

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linguistically diverse ZIP code in all

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of the United States and so this map

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focuses particularly on Queens and its
languages.

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We plotted out the languages

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that were represented in the library

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system so kind of the official national
languages

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in one color and within those

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communities all of the unofficial

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languages, the regional languages, local

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languages that are, in many cases, not
even

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recognized as official languages

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back home and those are the languages

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that that are endangered and that we're
more interested in.

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By the end of the century we'll lose
somewhere between

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half to ninety percent

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of the world's languages.

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You can only imagine what else
we'll lose with those languages

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Right? Not just the words and
the grammatical systems but also

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everything that was transmitted in those

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languages; the songs, the histories, the

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proverbs, the knowledge about the

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environment, the knowledge

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about how peoples were

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historically related to each other.

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[Music]

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You can say that "okay languages come
and go...

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it doesn't... like it it's not a big deal"

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but it's big deal when it is dying and

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we are not doing anything about it.

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You know, when all you can speak is
English

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or Spanish or Chinese then...

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that can be, in fact, a reminder that
you've lost

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what's yours and something foreign has

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been forced upon you and you live that
every day.

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When we think about the riches of our

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own language—whatever language
that is—

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we should imagine that those

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riches are duplicated 6,000 times in

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every language and to lose that it's

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like losing a museum as as one famous
linguist said.

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[Music]

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Recording language creates a permanent

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record leverage right so now especially

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in the in the digital age a recording is

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actually much much more valuable and

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easier to work with I would say.

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The linguistic record optimally should be

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something that's multi-purpose so it's

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good for linguist strength to study the

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language it's also good for speakers

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trying to revive the language perhaps

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it's good for trying to understand the

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the oral literature the stories and

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other aspects that maybe we're not even

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thinking about today but that may be

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very valuable to look back on in 50 or
100 years.

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[Singing]

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Active archiving always has to

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take into account the different players,
the different...

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and especially the community

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from which it comes from

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not to kind of take it away from them and

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put it in some digital vault but rather

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think of it as a way of facilitating the

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community's access to the language.

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If you are in a country that English is a

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dominant language you need to learn it

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but nobody will say that "ok human being

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only can speak one language; they cannot

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handle two languages".

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Yes, they can. If you go to Europe

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or you can go to India,

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people speak three languages or four
languages.

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It's just the perspective, if you

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change the perspective and you can have

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a multilingual America and a happier one.

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[Music]