Pandemic overall the region accounts for more than 30 percent of all coronavirus related deaths worldwide and maybe 30 percent of all infections Monica Yannick here has more from Rio De Janeiro everybody is out and about as if nothing were happening thats pretty much the case for example its very hot here in Rio De Janeiro its winter but its been very hot its a very hot season all over brazil and people are out on the no social distancing no masks theyre out in bars and restaurants and the government also doesnt give a good example the president himself isnt one that likes wear masks so people have just been Walking Around as if nothing like this happening. Neighboring peru has the highest death rates per capita in the world doctors and other Health Workers are on strike demanding better equipment. To the United StatesLargest Airlines are all skin thousands of employees to go and leave as politicians struggle to agree on a new Coronavirus Relief bill united furloughing more than 13000 staff and americans American Airlines some 900008 federal ban on layoffs expires later on thursday Indian Police are being accused of creating the body of a teenage girl against her familys wishes the 19 year old died after she was gang raped and its provoked renewed anger of the Sexual Violence in india and against the countrys call system the victim was from the community which is the lowest cost police are out in force in hong kong to deter protests on Chinas National Day there were small demonstrations and a bigger rallies are expected later those are the headlines the news continues here on our desire after the stream. I care about helping you with the gate but the rock the world i cover Foreign Policy natural for you already this is a political impasse heres the conflict are we telling a good story. We are really good in taking you into a place that you might not visit otherwise at the actually feels that you were there. Hello im melissa chan and im guest hosting the stream home edition today were going to be talking about endangered languages there are some 50027000 languages out there depending on how you count it and 50 to 90 percent of it its estimated could be gone by the end of the century well take a look at why and speak to some of those who are working to preserve these languages as always on you tube post your comments and questions well try to get to as many as possible see you too you can join the stream. Welcome to our guest today we have david and we had rock or a we have beat us to get quickly if you can each introduce yourselves to everyone lets start with david. I am a listener and good morning to all of our viewers and my names david harris my most successful geographic. I study law. And endangered languages and i work with last speak. To the world to help them change their language just david you broke up there so im going to let the viewers know that you are affiliated with national geographic. Now be considered quickly introduce yourself to everyone. How. Their grand is in a cause that probably current will divide. Them. Under one minute its beat us again. I am from minneapolis minnesota and my clan is bare and i work every go to Learning Center which is an Immersion School located in the south with the atlas rocker a tell us about yourself. But theyre not kowtowing among the n. R. A. Or tell me on the cant quit the my name is Ricky Holland i come from qatar in a key which is one of the provinces provinces in new zealand outdoor and most of my work in and if it has been Community Based really are without language revitalisation effects and this very much where i would now. Its very interesting with these languages that are being threatened about one 3rd of all the languages out there has fewer than 1000 speakers and its just a big challenge in this day and age to maintain their days and im curious where are some of the regions that you see around the world that are most vulnerable to losing languages. Listen. Ive been in study and with diversity. By weve noticed its not evenly distributed so there are what you could call Language Arts which are areas in the world which have extreme diversity of languages and there are Global Forces that are pushing languages and exchange but fortunately there are also strong local force despite being to say my jewish and i really. Compliment my fellow get today because they are with me which warriors who are fighting to save their own what im getting so it is a dire situation globally as we see almost half of the worlds 7000 languages threatened with extinction but of the signs that languages are being revitalized. I want to put everything in context here i pulled a Washington Post article its super interesting because of the graphics on it take a look it says nearly 2 thirds of people speak one of these 12 languages as their native language you see chinese arabic spanish will be very do bengali english no surprises there and look at this next page or in the same article english is by far the most commonly studied Foreign Language in the world so if you have 2 people speaking to different endangered languages for example and they meet there most likely if they wanted to communicate most likely to have english as a shared language a to what extent i wonder is the fact that there are these main languages the fact that theyre pushing out the ability for people to practice language as it was smaller with a smaller population of people. Im curious about how rock or a thinks about this in your work. So quite obviously having Global Languages associated with government and the economy a definitely has an impact on local languages but i suppose that i dont focus so much on the numbers of speakers to me its not about having a 1000000 speakers or 100000 speakers its more around the quality of the interaction that takes place the intergenerational transmission in a language can survive with a relatively small population has long as the quality of the transmission in the maintenance of that language as a part of the shared identity is strong so focusing on numbers sometimes is a is a huge distraction and we feel that because we dont have as many speakers they were not doing as well but i tend to focus on the quality of the interaction and generational transmission. The desk and here is do you agree with what rocker a says do you think its more about quality not quantity. I completely agree theres a lot of instances where we have see the scene language that way star meant for a long time but as long as we get quality language thats being you know maintained and secured and like a Great Variety of resources that was documented you can definitely bring back language to thrive i do believe that as long as we have quality language that is being and then i dont see any way that it couldnt survive. Im curious about what you think in terms of why this is happening and theres a lot being written about in terms of the fact that urbanization is a contributor to people losing languages you know their language that they speak in their village or are in our area will area and they go into the big cities and they end up speaking whatever everyone else is speaking a city so theres urbanization there globalization theres also technology and technology can be both a good thing or a bad thing its bad that Google Translate determines which languages they want to include ray but its good because you have apps like dual lingo where people are learning languages the technology is something that im curious about in terms of how you guys think about it as a positive or a negative david i see you nodding so why dont you jump ben. Well taken ology. First say it can be a great platform to expand a language i have developed a platform called the talking dictionary which is the 1st presence on the internet for now nearly 200 endangered languages and these communities are using it to increase their presence i also want to comment briefly because you had a track to it on the bottom of the screens in the past the worlds languages have no written form that is presenting writing and. Writing. Most of the worlds languages are oral and we we in literate cultures we tend to think of if you dont have writing youre lacking something youre deficient somehow but oral cultures are amazing and astonishing at what they can do with their minds. Details who speak an unwritten language and they can recites 10000 lines of an epic story they can do things that seem miraculous to those of us and so theres a significant trade off between our writing in a language other cultural things that you might thats not some one way progression that you should adopt already. And normally and what weve seen in the past is that there tends to be a view that a language without a script that is just oral is looked down upon unfortunately i want to bring in some of the comments that weve seen on you tube and jenny since america says that hebrew and hawaiian are examples of languages successfully brought back from extinction or the threat of extinction why did they succeed when so many other attempts to save indigenous languages fare so i lets hold on to that top thought and let me go to 2 tweets that have also been written presently im having the same challenge so i made sure my children learn to speak minute a language which is a nigeria at a very younger age at home that its not compulsory for them to speak new bay thats actually something that i personally also experience i was not allowed to speak english at home it was cantonese and Mandarin Chinese only here is some body else. For for forcing i thought about that some time back i think as a way to save them we direct the same energy and resources as the english language i mean dictionaries computer digitalization if the language with the aid of the people who are still in grasp of the language rather a and b. Jessica quick im very curious about. Your your your method of educating what do you think about what people have said about starting from the home and that that being a very important component to get quick. I think its really important i mean ideally youre setting up in last for your family at home where you realize and recognize that this is a place where its safe to speak your language and you dont have the outside impeding in on who you are and what your identity as we speak your language your heritage language i think its very important and i love that everybody has commented so far and i think youre on the right path for everything. Reactor a you think so too. And were absolutely i think we need to start raising our children in these languages so that a becomes a neutral and a normalized language in those communities but returning back to the earlier comment having a written language or having a large corpus of the language is really important however at the same time sometimes when we focus so much on the written form we focus on the language as something separate from the communities themselves and so that something has happened with modeling which theres been so much emphasis on the language understanding grammar and structure in the building the corpus that in many ways weve left out one of the most important gradients which other communities of speakers need to maintain the language and so were really really only coming to terms with how we can reengage communities again with their language today here in this country. And i want to bring in another comment at this time youre talking about communities here is a comment from you tube. Abdulfattah saying i personally believe that colonialism has a great role to play especially in africa and i hear rupert tribe in one theory i hardly understand some media of words as a father how do i teach my children and that leads me to the Community Video submission that we have from grassy n at bay hes a professor of african language sticks from camera have a listen. The legacy of organizational on account with these is the adoption by the newly independent missions of the east of the follow up must as weve just been used the policy patents and. Those languages and only one would ease the expense of the Mother Tongue its. So theres and are the absolutely right yes go ahead at the end i love the examples from africa and youre the person who tweeted said they were from nigeria you know nigeria is part of a language hotspot that has the immense language diversity more than 500 languages and ive been speaking to a friend of mine fine whos a nigerian linguist hes a speaker of the b. B. S. Which is a language with millions of speakers in the 1st days of school while his type. In the 4th through 6th grade it was entirely in english and they were discouraged from speaking the Mother Tongue and then as soon as he reached the 7th grade. They were not only discouraged they were punished by being beaten or being forced to perform hard labor if they were carts in their Mother Tongue so that the irony is that he still speaks both languages and he didnt need to give up if he be of it in order to earn. The right encourage with. Yes so institutions and government have a big role to play out when you think about colonialism it really is about institutions and how governments decide what languages are important i think about these days of course some of the headlines is china trying to impose teaching and preventing mongolian from being toxic and they have of course also trying to control the language in this scene jan territory where theyre article readers as well and of course tibetan for quite a number of decades and so i really am curious ruach are agnes yes a good question about your respective language just because they were essentially a victim of the institutions and the governments in place ruprecht can you just let people know a little bit of the history. Modeling which was dipping at least. If it be used by the government to ensure that modeling which wasnt maintained so just as david is just explained nigeria. The language in 867 you could only get funding for schools if you only spoke english and in probably about 70 or 80 years ago punishment for speaking marty wards was still very much the norm. Though. That they had a government one National Language and all the other lane with the interface make it on their own. Theres a common theme i think around the world since of nationalism associated with one common dominant language. Is something that denies the voices denies the identities of localised communities and quite often we associate ourselves in moving ahead in the world with it leaving behind and the diversity certainly was the case in not an alky or in new zealand. When you look at languages that are dying i want to pull up a video of Christina Calderon shes over 90 years old shes the last person on earth who speaks this language called young don have a listen. I would have to be in this if. Sometimes when i think about what i was going to say and then i i dont remember i used to speak with my sister when she was still here that my sister died the children do not let me again bring none of my nephews learned you know i have no one and no one no one to speak to thats how it is you know its a shame to not be able to speak again because i really miss that. Melissa never coming up ahead of christinas story is very touching of course and ive met many speakers around the world who are truly to the left which is you know. The language become silent becomes in this lies people in the community a sense of loss to regret 2 of the stars it may take a generation or 2 before they come back and realize the value that it has for them but her story is true common among us speakers its very heartbreaking and on you tube we have another comment from expect oh patrolling as language is important it is the most important symbol of ones culture the issue cannot be overlooked just because we have more pressing issues like Climate Change they have their own importance and i think that really echoes what you just said david so looking at what can be done i also want to hear another Community Video that was shared with us from naive lotto and im yes wilker theres founders of lower languages in mexico this is what they have to say. I think all around me is a niche in our language and over 300. 00 a month of last in there was a new model many of the countries of iraq and this is the language of the hour they sing and i think a reset the chain and i know we made a mission. To learn the language and this is the 1st that can break baghdad and make people very probably get. So much show that every guy didnt show the view the m. F. T. That they were my friends and that we also prevented all the use of the patients because with them feed us make it quick im curious what are methods that have worked for you in terms of teaching the language that get young people engaged. I just want to point kind of a comment that i have that everyone has talked about how like oral proficiency has been more of play theres a lot of languages that are oral and its been a tough transition to making them more about literacy for the language or languages one of those languages that it was almost entirely oral oral speaking and you know the literacy is just now starting to be like thats a thing that we teach the students and you know its a new way the new age kind of thing and i think with the oral speaking what comes in the hand is you get all these cultural teachings and remembering where to fall on them i mean one of the comments that you had earlier was about like Climate Change if you have if you rely on your language for like oral practices and that language that falls in hand with it you will get teachings from your elders or resources that were passed on from generation and those teachings can teach you about like Climate Change or how to take care of your community i mean its those things that you can genuinely fall on to take care of yourself and your community all together thats what we do with immersion teaching its an experience a learning we use all those cultural teachings to teach our kids what was passed on to us thats very interesting so its very holistic rockeries that the same experience you have in terms of getting younger people engaged its not just about the language its very holistic. And so much so much focus goes on language acquisition and in many cases for us weve become very good at teaching language but were not very good at using language and so establishing those immersion environments absolutely whats needed within our environment and using and then all the or but the key pointers as if we wait until Children School age or we wait until were adults to start learning a language its hugely inefficient its far easier to establish a lane which was when children are picking up their languages in the 1st instance that expose them to communities or domains where language is a normalized is a part of culture and identity and they pick it up so much more quickly and so much more. That the integrity is so much stronger for them is they grow up so that. Rather than focus in or learning a language and im not saying that we dont do that on just simply saying we cant leave aside the importance of the immersion demand outside of the learning environment and sometimes we leave those behind or we dont put enough effort into those spaces kerry culture and i didnt. Yeah i got a lesson at that was at least yes go ahead yeah i could just kind of like to pick up on the das a good quote is really wonderful point about the environment but. We need language diversity just as we need biodiversity for a Healthy Planet for a Healthy Society and most of what humans know about the environment plants and animal species that are not yet known to scientists are well known and well under stood and then theres languages and cultures so without those languages were missing the huge chunk of the Human Knowledge base and were missing the ability to take care of our planet but that knowledge. Its very interesting as is going to say that in many ways that question that was asked on you tube earlier how do i teach my children is in many ways based on what you guys have said it the wrong question to ask almost that it isnt just about going into a classroom and its about so much more that david i do want to follow up on that what what if if a parent does ask you that though what would you say to them. About the importance of transmission you know generational transmission is how language is survive and it has to be incentivized and for the parent we underestimate the amount of agency that children have in deciding whether to keep a language or not if you create the right social conditions children will make a rational choice in the. Language if you make them go ashamed of their if youre at the will give up the language. When youre in the very end of our shows i want to go to each of you to ask if you can Say Something in the language that you teach and specialize in and what it means lets start with a rock or a. No hold on michael though you do not annoy teenie dont even a complete typically called at all that i just explained. A seed farewell but also. Using the witty put on me which is i would put into nick since that is that is a coming together or source or container falling which got it. Bit us to get your final thought. Is that i it could all. Go and im. You sick. You know i think you know our week which was in delhi and i would like to say that i speak 10 phrases at home every day if you have 10 phrases you can use those and polite and also then from there and then i also want to say thank you for having me and the coop a man ill be seeing you know. David your quick sentence into the language of the pneumatic you are herders when youre saying sure well use our balls to move your ruby why does the secret color to color do it for some. Rock or a bit as it quickly and david thank you so much for joining this program. And disease because 50 percent of the deaths of children. Likely to receive childhood education. Lead us to. A face can tell a story without uttering a single one. And knowing its. A simple touch. Inform us. Conventionality of life witnessed through the lens of the human. Is more to inspire such a. Witness documentaries on aljazeera. Young women with a passion for space i used to dream about working in a company like not sound i did last about a small stuff the science the giant leap for mankind in stock. And at the scheduled time the satellite would be sent into space women make science cut a stunt space school at the certified on aljazeera. Aljazeera. And. Corona virus test surge again in brazil with another day death toll so rick beyond 1000. I mean this is al jazeera life and also coming up. In the health look has gone strike in peru as a latin american nation recalled stuff high is crying a virus death per capita in the world. The family of an indian woman who was gang raped and left for dead accuse police of committed