ABC Radio Australia
The United Nations cultural organisation UNESCO says one language becomes extinct every fortnight. By the end of this century, the world will likely lose half of its 6,700 languages. Cambodia has 19 languages listed as endangered, and it is unlikely that many of them will survive the next 90 years.
Presenter: Robert Carmichael
Speakers: Dr Jean-Michel Filippi, linguist; Mr Noi, S'aoch villager; Blaise Kilian, UNESCO; Ron Watt, CARE International
Listen: Windows Media
CAMBODIAN VILLAGER: (S'aoch)
CARMICHAEL: You might have guessed that those words are the numbers from one to ten in someone else's language - in this case, that language is known as S'aoch and it is found in one small village in southern Cambodia. The S'aoch word for ten is LOP. And that is also the total number of people who are fluent in the 5,000-year-old language. In short S'aoch is dying. Language experts reckon it has perhaps 10 years before it disappears for ever. That is because the 110 S'aoch people prefer to speak Khmer, the language of the majority of Cambodians, rather than their own tongue. Dr Jean-Michel Filippi is a linguist who speaks more than a dozen languages. Filippi is studying S'aoch and has transcribed around 4,000 S'aoch words to date. His target, once the dictionary is completed, is a grammar book. Transcribing is a laborious process - here is Filippi using the Khmer language to transcribe the S'aoch word for durian, the pungent fruit common to Southeast Asia, with Mr Noi, the village chief, and his 40-year-old son, Tuem.
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