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A group of linguists at UC Santa Cruz are on a mission to save a rarely studied endangered language. Through investigation and collaboration, they hope to preserve an indigenous language spoken by communities from Mexico now living in the Monterey Bay area.
Within the cities of Santa Cruz and Watsonville are Zapotec speakers. They are diaspora communities meaning they’re a scattered population originating from somewhere else. In this case, these indigenous communities originate from Oaxaca in Southern Mexico. Many came to California as migrant farm workers, particularly in the 1980s.
Maziar Toosarvandani is the lead linguist on this project. (His team received a $411,058 grant from the National Science Foundation last year to support their research).
Peter Salmon, last speaker of endangered Thiinma language, travels through WA to teach it
FriFriday 15
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FriFriday 15
JanJanuary 2021 at 1:44am
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(ABC Pilbara: Susan Standen)
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years old and the last speaker of the Thiinma language.
Key points:
Thiinma is a critically endangered language and Peter Salmon is its last native speaker
Mr Salmon embarked on a two-week trip to the remote Upper Gascoyne region of his childhood
The aim of the trip was for the Thiinma language to be recorded, shared and spoken