The Life Of Languages

Connecticut Public Radio | By Colin McEnroe

Published October 12, 2011 at 2:40 PM EDT

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Kim Nowacki, Flickr Creative Commons

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Chion Wolf

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Kim Nowacki, Flickr Creative Commons

There are a lot of made-up languages with big fans. You may have heard of Na'vi from the movie Avatar, or Elvish from Lord of the Rings. Among fans, many of these languages have found a home on the web, where they continue to be developed and studied.

At the same time, thousands of real languages around the world are facing extinction.

Jonathan David Bobaljik is a UConn professor working to save the dying language of Itelmen. Today, only about 20 people speak Itelmen in the entire world.

Later in the segment, Paul Frommer explains what it was like to invent a language for James Cameron's blockbuster movie, Avatar.

Leave your comments below, e-mail colin@wnpr.org, or Tweet us @wnprcolin.

Colin McEnroe

Colin McEnroe is a radio host, newspaper columnist, magazine writer, author, playwright, lecturer, moderator, college instructor and occasional singer. Colin can be reached at colin@ctpublic.org.

See stories by Colin McEnroe

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