Around 7.000 languages are spoken worldwide. But about every two weeks, one of them disappears along with the last person who speaks it.
Linguist Dr. Mary Walworth dedicates her work to languages that are often on the verge of disappearing. She specializes in Oceanic languages, and for her research, she regularly travels to remote islands in the Pacific, where only a few people still speak languages that may soon disappear. There, she documents languages to preserve them, collects stories, and uses them to trace how people have moved across the ocean.
She was recently featured in the National Geographic series “Pole to Pole,” where Will Smith accompanies her in her work on various Pacific islands.
In this episode, she gives us insight into her fieldwork: How do you document a language? What can words reveal about migration, exchange, and the history of entire regions? And what is lost when a language disappears?
We talk about fieldwork in remote places, about language as a foundation of identity and community – and about how her work has changed since her daughter began accompanying her in the field.
