Bob Holman attending.
There are over 6000 languages in the whole world and we lose one every two weeks. At this rate, hundreds will be lost within the next generation, and by the end of this century, half of the world’s languages will have vanished.
Language Matters was filmed around the world: on a remote island off the coast of Australia where 400 Aboriginal people speak 10 different languages; in Wales, where Welsh, once in danger, is today making a comeback; and in Hawaii, where Hawaiians are fighting to save their native tongue. “Most people know that we are losing species,” says Bob Holman, a poet widely known for his expertise in oral traditions. “Ask schoolchildren, and they’ll know about the panda or the orchid—they’ll have done a project on it. But ask someone if they know that languages all over the world are dying, maybe one in ten might.”
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The Film Society of Minneapolis St. Paul is supported in part by a grant provided by the Minnesota State Arts Board through an appropriation by the Minnesota State Legislature from the State's general fund and its arts and cultural heritage fund with money from the vote of the people of Minnesota on November 4, 2008.