A talk by Professor K. David Harrison,  "Language Hotspots: Tracking Local and Global Patterns of Language Extinction."
Of the seven thousand languages spoken globally, nearly half are endangered and likely to disappear in this century.  This will entail a massive loss of human knowledge about a wide range of subjects.  Scientists and indigenous communities are working together to understand and address the causes of language loss.  This talk reports on the current state of the art in language endangerment studies.  
Sponsored by Department of Linguistics.