Language Institute to host Feb. 19 documentary screening

February 10th 2015 Simon Kuran
Arts & Humanities
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On Feb. 19, the UW-Madison Language Institute will celebrate UNESCO's International Mother Language Day with a screening of The Linguists, which documents two ethnographers as they travel around the world to research dying languages.

The Linguists film posterThe film highlights David Harrison and Gregory Anderson as they race to the furthest reaches of the globe to save dying and hidden languages. In their thrilling adventures, they observe a Kallawaya healing ritual in Bolivia, attend a traditional ceremony in a remote village in India and travel to Siberia to record a language which has not been heard by outsiders for more than 30 years.

The screening, which starts at 6 p.m. at The Marquee in Union South, is free and open to the public.

Although students can study dozens of foreign languages at UW-Madison, this wide range of choices represents only a small portion of the roughly 7,000 languages worldwide. It is estimated that about half of these languages are endangered and are likely to die out within the next century, according to UNESCO.

After premiering at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival, The Linguists has exposed to countless viewers to the problems communities and cultures face when languages become endangered.

Note: Harrison, a professor of linguistics at Swarthmore College, was forced to cancel his visit because of an illness, so there will no longer be a Q&A following the screening.

Story courtesy the Language Institute