Within the framework of its Endangered Languages Programme, UNESCO has entered into partnership with the Discovery Communications, INC. And the UN Works Programme to produce a series of short-form programmes on various endangered languages throughout the world. (Read the press release.)

See a photo gallery of images from the short-form programmes.

Eighteen endangered languages and locations were identified, in close consultation and co-operation with experts and the governments of the countries concerned. The vignettes were shot during the months of October/November 2002 and October/November 2003. The first nine vignettes were aired globally on the Discovery Channel on 21 February 2003, the International Mother Language Day. The stories were filmed in Argentina, Canada, India, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, Scotland and Sweden. The second series of vignettes began airing during the evening of February 21st 2004. These vignettes were filmed in Australia, Croatia, Gabon, Guatemala, India, Lithuania, Malaysia, Panama and South Africa.
Browse the descriptions below.

EUROPE

Language: Scots Gaelic

  Region: Scotland
  No. of speakers in the UK: 55,000

Linguistic affiliation : Indo-European, Celtic, Insular, Goidelic.

Introduced into Scotland about AD 500 (displacing an earlier Celtic language of the Brythonic group), it developed into a distinct dialect of Gaelic in the 13th century. A common Gaelic literary language was used in Ireland and Scotland until the 15th century, by which time Scottish had diverged to such a degree from Irish that mutual intelligibility was difficult, and Scots Gaelic could be considered a separate language from Irish.
Church Gaelic is based on the Perthshire dialect of 200 years ago, and is at a distance from spoken dialects. East Sutherlandshire dialect is so different from other spoken dialects as to be a barrier to communication. In some communities it is primarily used in the home, in church, and for social purposes. Books and journals are produced on various topics.
Today the Scots Gaelic is spoken in the north and central counties of Ross, and the Islands of Hebrides and Skye, but also in Australia, Canada and USA. Resurgence of interest in Scots Gaelic in the 1990s has been given a boost by the establishing of Scotland’s own Parliament, for the first time in 300 years.


(Sources: Encyclopaedia Britannica; Ethnologue, Volume I, Languages of the World)

Language: Saami

  Region: Sweden
  No. of speakers in Sweden: 15,000

Linguistic affiliation: Uralic, Finno-Ugric, Finno-Permic, Finno-Cheremisic, Finno-Mordvinic, Finno-Lappic, Lappic.

The Saami are an indigenous people who have inhabited the northern parts of Norway, Sweden and Finland, and much of the Kola Peninsula of Russia for thousands of years. The "Saami language" is a misleading term in that there are three distinct languages: East Saami, Central Saami (including North Saami, Pite Saami and Lule Saami) and South Saami.The history of the written word among the Saami can be traced back to the translation of missionary literature in the early 1600s, and despite ‘Norwegification’ in the latter 1800s and earlier part of the twentieth century, the Saami language and culture has recovered its place since the Second World War.
Traditional Saami culture was marked by hunting and fishing activities. Today, only a small proportion of the Saami people (perhaps 10 percent) are nomadic reindeer-herders, but this part of traditional Saami life remains very important to Saami cultural practice. Fjord fisheries are also central to most Saami people and to Saami culture.
The Saami have for more than a century resisted the attempts of non-Saami society to assimilate the Saami population. In 1903, a political newspaper, the Sagai Muittalaegje, provided a strong voice against these assimilation policies. Other political activities followed which helped the Saami maintain their distinct identity and way of life. In 1917, the first pan-Saami gathering was held. Shortly after World War II, the Saami Reindeer Herders’ Association was formed. In 1956 the Saami Nordic Council was established as a liaison body between Norwegian, Finnish and Swedish Saami. With the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Saami of the Kola Peninsula joined the Council and it was renamed the Saami Council in 1991. The establishment of a Saami Parliament (Sameting) in 1989 increased the linguistic, cultural and legal recognition of the Saami people throughout the 1980s.

(Sources: Communiqué drafted by representatives of the indigenous peoples organisations for release at the AMAP International Symposium on Environmental Contamination of the Arctic (Tromsø, June 1997); Ethnologue, Volume I, Languages of the World.)

UNESCO: Mr. Ole-Henrik Magga, linguist, President of the Saami Parliament in Norway, expert in Saami culture, former Professor in Finno-Ugrian languages at the University of Oslo was elected Chairperson of the Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues which met for its first historic session at the United Nations in New York from 13 to 24 May 2002 (established on 28 July 2000).

Language: Karaim

  Region: Lithuania
  No. of speakers in Lithuania: 50

Linguistic affiliation: Eastern Karaim, Northwestern Karaim, Trakay, Galits.

For more than six hundred years, Karaim has been spoken as a community language in the territory of today’s Lithuania and the Ukraine. Due to the political measures taken by the post-war Soviet regime, the communities are now dispersed and the maintenance of their language has become endangered. The number of Karaims in Lithuania is about two hundred but only a fourth of them, mostly members of the eldest generation, still have a communicative competence in the language. Karaim speakers of Lithuania are multilingual, also having command of the regional or transregional dominant languages Lithuanian, Polish, Russian and Ukrainian. The functional domain of the Karaim language is restricted to everyday conversational situations in the family and with a few Karaim friends. Karaim also plays an important role in religious practice, since songs and prayers are both in Karaim and Hebrew.

(sources:  http://www.hf-fak.uib.no/Institutter/smi/paj/HarviainenD.html;
http://www.tooyoo.l.u-tokyo.ac.jp/activities/nov1997/eva.html;
http://www.euronet.nl/users/sota/karaim22.htm; http://www.euronet.nl/users/sota/karaim21.htm;
http://www.turkiye.net/sota/karalit.html; http://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=KDR)

Language: Istro-Romanian

  Region: Croatia
  No. of speakers in Croatia: 300

Linguistic affiliation: Indo-European, Romance, Eastern


In Croatia, the Istro-Romanian language is spoken by about 300 people living in several villages in the northeast of the Istrian Peninsula.
The Istro-Romanian language contains many Italian and Slavic words due to the close contact to Italian and Slavic language speakers for centuries. The language is listed as seriously endangered. Due to its very small number of speakers, there is no public education or press in Istro-Romanian and in Croatia its speakers are not even recognised as a minority. All Croatian speakers of Istro-Romanian are bilingual in Istro-Romanian and Croate.

(sources: http://istrianet.org/istria/linguistics/istrorumeno/;
http://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=RUO)

NORTH AMERICA

Language : Haida

Region : Canada
No. of speakers in Canada : 165

Linguistic affiliation : Na-Dene, Haida

The Haida are North American Indians living on the Queen Charlotte Islands of British Columbia and on part of Prince of Wales Island, southeast Alaska, which some Haida groups invaded, probably early in the 18th century.

Traditional Haida society was organized into many single matriclan villages composed of one to several house groups. Matriclans, headed by hereditary chiefs, were land-owning and ceremonial units that were divided into Eagle and Raven subgroups (moieties). Expert fishermen and seafarers, the Haida depended heavily on halibut, black cod, sea mammals, molluscs, and other sea species in addition to their freshwater salmon catches. The abundant red cedars were used to make huge dugout canoes, multifamily plank houses, numerous splendidly carved TOTEM poles as memorials and as portal poles, and carved boxes and dishes. Chiefs gave potlatches to guests of the opposite moiety, displaying hereditary crests and dances. Shamans wore masks indicative of their spirit powers in curing. Warfare with enemy tribes was frequent, for revenge, booty, and slaves.
In the early 19th century the aboriginal Haida population was about 8,000 on the Queen Charlotte Islands and 1,800 in Alaska; in the 1890s they numbered fewer than 1,500 as the result of disease introduced through Western contact. During this appalling population decline, Queen Charlotte Islands survivors assembled in multiclan villages, of which two remain, Masset and Skidegate. Alaskan Haida formed five multiclan villages, since merged (1911) at Hydaburg. In the mid-1980s the total Haida population was about 2,000.

(Sources: Ethnologue, Volume I, Languages of the World; www.alaskan.com/akencinfo/haida.html)

ASIA

Language: Kadazandusun

  Region: Sabah, Malaysia
  No. of speakers in Malaysia: 300,000

Lingusitic affiliation: Austronesian, Malayo-Polynesian, Borneo, Northwest, Sabahan, Dusunic, Dusun

The Kadazandusun language community is the largest language community of Sabah, Malaysia. The Kadazandusun language has 13 notable dialects with more than 300,000 speakers living in the districts of Ranau, Tambunan, Penampang, Papar, Tuaran, Kota Belud, and those parts of Kota Kinabalu outside the city. Speakers of the Kadazandusun language also live in Beafort, Kinabatangan, Labuk-Sugut, and Keningau districts, with some migrant villages in the districts of Tenom and Tawau. They are traditionally farmers occupying the fertile plains of the west coast and the interior.

(Sources: Sabah State Library Online: www.ssl.sabah.gov.my/project/kadaze.asp; "SABAH, land of the sacred mountain", by Albert C.K. Teo)

Language: Ainu

Region: Hokkaido, Japan
No. of speakers in Japan: 150

Lingusitic affiliation: Language Isolate. Dialects: Sakhalin (Saghilin), Taraika, Hokkaido (Ezo, Yezo), Kuril (Shikotan)

According to a current survey conducted by the Hokkaido Government in 1984, the Ainu population of Hokkaido then was 24,381. Originally residing throughout its four major islands, the Ainu today live principally in Hokkaido and Kuril Islands (formerly also on south Sakhalin Island, Russia).
Ainu has not been found to be related linguistically to any other language. Sources list up to 19 dialects. The last speaker of the Sakhalin dialect died in 1994. Most of the people speak only Japanese and are integrated into Japanese culture. Ainu in China is a different, unrelated language. Scholars have advocated various theories about the origin of the Ainu people. The theories include the Caucasoid (Caucasian) Theory, the Mongoloid Theory, the Oceania Race Theory, the Old Asian Race Theory, and the Solitary Race Theory.
At the beginning of the year 1997, the Japanese government officially recognized the Ainu as an indigenous Japanese minority group. The Ainu, in the 1980s, began to take part in the new ethnic movement because they recognized their own situation to be very similar to that of other ethnic groups, i.e. of the Native Americans, Aboriginal Australians or Arctic peoples.

(Encyclopedia Britannica; Gabor Wilhelm "The Ainu in Japan: Ethnic Identity and Cultural Definitions", Pro Ethnologia 11, Tartu, 2001; Ethnologue, Volume I, Languages of the World; www.ainu-museum.or.jp)

Language: Sharda Script

Region: Srinagar, India
No. of speakers in India: 489

Sharda is the original script of Kashmir. It evolved from the Western branch of Brahmi nearly 1200 years ago, when the language of Kashmir was developing into Kashmiri, with its peculiar intonations, variations and sounds. As a result, Sharda was imprinted with these vocal peculiarities, and became unfit for Sanskrit. Sharda, however, continued to be used for writing Sanskrit in Kashmir.
Sharda script was much in use in Kashmir, but also in North Western India (Gilgit etc.), the Punjab and Himachal Pradesh and even in Central Asia. This script enjoys a vanguard position among all the ancient Indian scripts. It is an excellent ancient alphabet of Kashmir. Almost all the ancient Sanskrit literature of Kashmir is written in this script.

(Sources: www.ikashmir.org/Languages)

Language: Lepcha

  Region: India
  No. of speakers in India: 39,342

Linguistic affiliation: Sino-Tibetan, Tibeto-Burman, Himalayish, Tibeto-Kanauri, Lepcha.

The Lepcha language is spoken in Sikkim and Darjeeling district in West Bengal of India. The Indian 1991 census counted 39,342 speakers of Lepcha. Lepcha is considered to be one of the aboriginal languages of the area in which it is spoken. Unlike most other languages of the Himalayas, the Lepcha people have their own indigenous script (by historical coincidence, the world's largest collection of old Lepcha manuscripts is kept in Leiden, with over 180 Lepcha books).

Lepcha is the language of instruction in some schools in Sikkim. It has been given considerable attention in the literature, in comparison to other Tibeto-Burman languages and cultures. Nevertheless, many important aspects of the Lepcha language and culture still remain undescribed.

(sources: www.ethnologue.com; http://sikkim.nic.in/north/html/lepcha.htm; www.language-museum.com/l/lepcha.htm; www.lepcha.info; http://www.iias.nl/host/himalaya/projects/lepcha.html)

Language: Kayan Murik

  Region: Malaysia
  No. of speakers in Malaysia: 1200-1300

Linguistic affiliation: Austronesian, Malayo-Polynesian, Western Malayo-Polynesian, Borneo, Kayan-Murik, Murik.

Kayan Murik is spoken in the Sarawak State of Malaysia by a small indigenous community of 1,200 to 1,300 speakers living along the Baram River. Cultivators and sedentary, the Kayan have active trading and exchange relationship with various groups up and down the Baram. They are great craftsman and well known for their boat making skills, which they carve from a single block of belian - the strongest of the tropical hardwoods.

(sources: http://www.sarawaktourism.com/kayan.html; ttp://www.sinica.edu.tw/ioe/plan/subject/e-intro.html)

Language: Idu Mishmi

  Region: Arunachal Pradesh, India
  No. of speakers in India: 8,569

Linguistic affiliation: Sino-Tibetan, Tibeto-Burman, North Assam, Tani

The Mishmis occupy the northeastern tip of the central Arunachal Pradesh in the Dibang valley and Lohit districts. Their areas are located in the Mishmi Hills which extend between the Dibang and Lohita rivers. The Mishmi Hills thus cover a vast expanse of hilly area beyond Sadiya in Assam valley. The Mishmis are divided into three groups on the basis of their geographical distribution: Idu Mishmi, Digaru Mishmi and Miju Mishmi. The main occupation is agriculture, and the traditional religion is Hindu.

(Sources: H.M. Bareh. "Encyclopedia of North-East India" Mittal Publications. New Delhi; Ethnologue, Volume I, Languages of the World.)

LATIN AMERICA

Language: Cucapa

Region: Mexico 
No. of Speakers in Mexico: 178

Linguistic affiliation: Hokan, Esselen-Yuman, Yuman, Delta-Californian.

Cucapa is an endangered language spoken by about 500 people in Mexico and in the USA. The Indians of the Colorado river were first mentioned in 1540 by the Spanish explorer Fernano Atarcon. At least during four hundred years the Cucapa lived in family groups in the area of the Delta of Colorado and the Hardy river, and on the slopes of the Cucapa mountains. They were hunter-gatherers, fishermen and agriculturalists, cultivating maize. In 1605, there were about 22,000 indigenous people in the region of Colorado river; in 1827, one traveller mentioned that some 5,000 Indians lived around the Colorado river, and, in 1990, only about 1000 settlers lived in this region.
Today, the Cucapa population lives in Baja California, in El Mayor, in San Poza de Arvizú (to the south of Río San Luis Colorado) and in Arizona, USA.

(Sources: Ethnologue, Volume I, Languages of the World; www.sonora.gob.mx/historia-cultura/etnias/cucapa.htm)

Language: Tobas

  Region: Argentina
  No. of speakers in Argentina: 36,000

Linguistic affiliation: Mataco-Guaicuru, Guaicuruan.

The Toba (Chaco Sur, Qom, Toba Qom) language is spoken in the Eastern Formosa Province and Chaco Province, and it is also spoken in Bolivia and Paraguay. There are two dialects: Southeast Toba and Nothern Toba and they are different from Toba of Paraguay (Toba-Maskoy) or Toba-Pilagá of Argentina.
The majority of speakers live in the mountains where they cultivate small parcels. In the last years, in the province of Chaco, the Tobas were granted definitive or provisory titles of property over their lands. Another group of Tobas live in suburban districts of Saenz Pena, Resistencia and Formosa. The Tobas constitute rural or urban communities with their traditional leaders or local commissions and communitarian associations, whose members are elected by the community.
The Tobas have lived in political and economic dependency of the dominant society. In spite of this, with time, they recovered the sense of being "Indian" and the will to fight for their rights. They speak their language, produce traditional crafts, preserve their dances and songs and perform ancient healing rituals.

(Sources: Ethnologue, Volume I, Languages of the World; Argentina Indigena - INCUPO (Instituto de Cultura Popular): www.madryn.com.)

Language: Naso

  Region: Panama
  No. of speakers in Panama: 2020

Linguistic affiliation: Terraba, Tiribi, Tirribi, Nortenyo, Quequexque, Naso.

The Naso (Teribe) language is spoken in the northwestern area of Panama, on the bank of the River Teribe, in the Kingdom of Naso. Naso is the name preferred by the speakers for their language. The name Teribe was the one imposed by the invading Spanish. Tito Santana, the actual King of the Kingdom of Naso and its 2800 subjects, rules the only recognized kingdom on the American continent. He is responsible for protecting the interests of his people against the barrage of influences which often threaten the Nasos’ cultural survival and their language.

(sources: http://www.geocities.com/RainForest/4043/histonaso.htm; http://www.ailla.org/site/welcome.html; http://www.sil.org/silewp/2001/003/SILEWP2001-003.pdf)

Language: Itza

  Region: Guatemala
  No. of speakers in Guatemala: 150

Linguistic affiliation: Mayan, Yucatecan, Mopan-Itza

About 30 Mayan languages are still spoken by indigenous peoples in southern Mexico, Guatemala, and Belize. Some are spoken by hundreds of thousands of people; some by fewer than 5,000. The highly endangered Mayan language Itzá is spoken by around 150 people living in the village of San José, on the northern shore of Lake Petén Itzá in Guatemala. Because the government banned the speaking of Itzá in the 1930s, two generations of Itzá Maya have grown up learning only Spanish. The late 1980s saw a blossoming of interest among Maya people, including the Itzá, in preserving their cultural heritage. This revitalization movement has been encouraged by the Guatemalan government, which set up an academy to promote Mayan languages.

(sources: http://www.siu.edu/worda/persp/sp97/itza.html; http://www.famsi.org/spanish/mayawriting/dictionary/boot/itza_based-on_hofling1991.pdf; http://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=ITZ)

AFRICA

Language: ‡Khomani

  Region: South Africa
  No. of speakers in South Africa: 23


Linguistic affiliation: Khoisan, Southern Africa, Southern, !Kwi.

‡Khomani speakers are part of the San ethnic group, the aboriginal people of South Africa. At one time spread over almost the whole of South Africa, in 1930 the ‡Khomani San moved to the Central and Northern Kalahari Desert and adjacent districts. In 1973, the last San communities were evicted from the Kalahari Gemsbok Park, with their native tongue, ‡Khomani, being declared officially extinct. In 1994, South Africa became a democratic country. A new law allowed people to reclaim land they had lost on the basis of race since 1913. With the help of the South African San Institute the ‡Khomani community put in a claim against the National Park. In 1999, the government awarded them 40,000ha of land outside the Park and another 25,000ha inside the Park. At the end of the 1990s, the first known surviving ‡Khomani speaker was identified. Since then research has found around 20 additional speakers. They constitute some of the few surviving aboriginal South African San. Approximately 1,500 adults are spread over an area of more than 1,000 km in the Northern Cape Province of South Africa. Most ‡Khomani nowadays speak fluently Khoekhoegowap (Nama) and/or Afrikaans as primary language. The use of the languages differs according to the context: ‡Khomani is used with other ‡Khomani speakers, Nama with friends and children, Afrikaans with adults and outsiders, sometimes with children, and for church. Literacy is in Afrikaans.
San are also living in Botswana and Namibia.

(sources: www.san.org.za/sasi/home.htm; http://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=NGH)

Language: Baka

  Region: Gabon
  No. of speakers in Gabon: 5000

Linguistic affiliation: Niger-Congo, Atlantic-Congo, Volta-Congo, North, Adamawa-Ubangi, Ubangi, Sere-Ngbaka-Mba, Ngbaka-Mba, Ngbaka, Western, Baka-Gundi

The Baka in Gabon form a group of forest people (pygmies) living in the northern border area to Cameroon. They are part of the large group of Baka found in Southwest Cameroon and Northeast of Congo Brazzaville. They migrated to Gabon in recent history.
Like other groups of African pygmies (Efe, Sua, Aka, Babenzele, etc.), the Baka are traditionally nomadic, even though they are undergoing a process of slow sedentariness under the influence of multiple factors. The first of these factors is massive deforestation, which deprives the pygmies of the natural and symbolic resources essential for their biological and cultural survival.
The language of the Baka is Ubangian-based in contrast to other forest people groups in Gabon the languages of which are Bantu-based.

(sources: http://www.unesco-pygmee.org/res/jk/; http://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=BKC)

AUSTRALIA

Language: Bunuba

  Region: Australia
  No. of speakers in Australia: 100

Linguistic affiliation: Australian, Bunaban.

The Bunuba language is spoken in Western Australia, from the township of Fitzroy Crossing in the Kimberley region, north along the Fitzroy River to Jijidju (Diamond Gorge) and to Miluwindi (King Leopold Ranges) and Napier Range in the west. There are about a hundred Bunuba speakers, most of whom are older people now living in Junjuwa, an Aboriginal community in Fitzroy Crossing. The Bunuba elders are concerned that the language is not being spoken by the younger people. In the past, stories were passed on by parents and grandparents, who told them to the children around campfires at night. This is one of the ways the Bunuba people have kept their history. It is only recently that the Bunuba language has been written down and a first major publication of Bunuba stories edited. In the last decade many Aboriginal people in the Kimberley have moved back to their traditional country and established communities. It is now easier for them to go back to their country, taking the kids and showing them the traditional ways of Bunuba life.

(sources: www.fatsil.org; http://www.fatsil.org/LOTM/june00.htm; http://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=BCK)

Lead Organization / Sector / Office UNESCO Paris, CLT/CH/ITH

Website (URL)

Start Date 2002-10-01 1:00 pm

End Date 2003-02-21 2:00 pm

Geography Keywords Argentina, Canada, India, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, Scotland and Sweden Redirection