flying hedgehogs: restoring a lost language




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Sunday, January 22, 2006

restoring a lost language

who knew good could come out of a colin farrell movie? hollywood director terence malick's greed for glory and money has partially restored virginia algonquian, pocahontas' language, for the new world. the scholar he funded to restore the language for the movie, blair rudes, told MSNBC:
"It might have been done anyway, but it would have taken much, much longer," Rudes said. "This type of work is very time-consuming and expensive. ... There are so many other projects, I probably wouldn't have turned to this one."
details on the restored language from the film, including CDs and scripts, will go to the descendants of the langage. a dictionary is also in-progress. many nations are attempting to reclaim some of the cultural heritage taken from them during assimilation, and language is an important key to this process. so even if the movie sucks, you'll be buying a bit of cultural preservation with your ticket.