Elar's David Nathan writes for The Mark

Confronting the Mass Extinction of Languages.

David Nathan, Director of the Endangered Languages Archive, describes the discipline of Documentary Linguistics and its origins.

"Last Silent Movie" at Tate Britain

As part of the Susan Hiller retrospective at Tate Britain, her work "The Last Silent Movie" is on display.

The work consists of recordings of various endangered and extinct languages. Visually, an otherwise blank screen, displays subtitles translating the speech into English. Notably, the speaker of Khulkassi is not subtitled because no one can translate the lullaby she sings.

The Telegraph says that the piece

Takes the theme of extinction and memory and what remains of us when we die to its logical conclusion. For what we are listening to are the last speakers of extinct or endangered languages.

and the Independent states that

Hiller's film is like the voice of a ghost, speaking a dialect of the dead

and declares that one speaker's assertion that "We will speak Comanche forever." isn't true, because "only a handful of people now use the language, all of them old."

In their reviews of the retrospective, The Guardian, and the London Evening Standard do not mention this piece at all.

The languages used in the piece are:

• K'ora,
• Cajun French, 
• Xokleng, 
• Ngansan, 
• Manx, 
• Waima'a, 
• Klallam, 
• Lower Sorbian, 
• Silbo Gomero (Listed on Ethnologue as a dialect of Spanish),
• Jerrais (Listed on Ethnologue as a dialect of French)
• Livonian, 
• Lenape, 
• Southern Sami, 
• Ngarrindjeri, 
• Potowatomi, 
• Border Cuna,
• Wampanoag, 
• Kulkhassi, (Extinct since before Ethnologue/ISO 639)
• Yao Kimmien, 
• Welsh Romany, 
• Ubykh, 
• Kolyma Yukaghir, 
• Jiwarli,
• Comanche.
• Blackfoot

The full credits are listed in the article: Translating Death.

Various papers report on the last two Ayapaneco speakers

Various papers report that the last two fluent speakers of Ayapeneco, refuse to speak to each other.

They all report on an Indiana University project to create a dictionary, and also the National Indigenous Language Institute attempts to set up classes in the language.

In Only two people speak dying language Ayapaneco – but refuse to talk, The Metro calls this a "last-ditch attempt to protect the language".

In Language spoken by only two people dying out as they won't talk to each other, The Telegraph states that "previous efforts have failed to lead to an upsurge in speakers".

The Age, chooses a play on words for the headline. Duo's Mexican standoff bodes ill for language on verge of extinction

The Guardian goes on to list five more languages from around the world, that are on the brink of extinction:
Ter Sami, Kayardild, Lengilu, Mabire, and Tehuelche.

The Metro also mentions an unrelated project: Indigenoustweets.com, that "logs global tweets in 68 languages, including Kreyòl ayisyen and Gamilaaray.".