Rosetta Project Aims to Save Languages for Future Generations

Augest 02, 2013

The Rosetta Project is named after the Rosetta Stone an ancient marker that helped scientists understand Egyptian heiroglyphs

Welcome to American Mosaic from VOA Learning English!

I’m June Simms.

On the show today, we play songs from a new album by Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros.

We also hear about a creative way one American school is making English classes more available to immigrants.

But first, we learn about a project to protect endangered languages.

There are about 7,000 languages in the world. Experts say half could disappear by the end of the century. But an effort called the Rosetta Project is working to protect them for future generations. Kelly Jean Kelly reports.

These two American linguistics students can speak several languages, including French. They are among 12 students taking part in a summer internship program with the Rosetta Project in San Francisco, California. They are working with trained linguists to expand a digital record of endangered languages.

The project’s name comes from the Rosetta Stone, the ancient stone marker kept at the British Museum in London. The marker has examples of writing in two different Egyptian writing systems and an early form of Greek. It helped experts understand Egyptian hieroglyphs.