Haruo Aoki receives blanket from Nez Perce scholars Beth Piatote (right) and Angel Sobotta (left) in November 2017. Aoki is a emeritus of East Asian Languages. Piatote was a key faculty member in launching the new designated emphasis in indigenous language revitalization. (UC Berkeley photo by Melani King)
Almost half of the 6,000 languages spoken around the world are considered endangered, according to UNESCO data. In an effort to preserve and nurture languages at risk of disappearing - and serve a growing interest among students - UC Berkeley is offering a new designated emphasis in Indigenous Language Revitalization. The new program - essentially a graduate minor available to students in any Ph.D. program at Berkeley - is an interdisciplinary collaboration of the departments of Ethnic Studies and Linguistics and the Graduate School of Education. The primary student constituencies are graduate students in these fields and Native American and Indigenous students in these or other fields. "More than half, maybe even two-thirds, of the graduate linguistics students do their dissertation work on endangered languages," says Andrew Garrett, a professor of linguistics. Many of them, he adds, are interested in language revitalization or already take part in language revitalization activities.
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