Some linguists estimate that roughly half of the world’s 7,000 or so languages are on the verge of extinction. A language might die out when a small territory is forced to integrate with a ruling ...

An online “talking dictionary” first launched in 2009 is attempting to preserve and pass on the Ainu language spoken by the indigenous inhabitants of Japan's northeastern island of Hokkaido and ...

Almost every 14 days, a language dies; that’s about 26 languages a year. And over 2,500 Indigenous languages are currently in danger of disappearing forever — that’s more than a third of our world’s ...

SAPPORO, JAPAN — For someone who grew up ashamed of her ethnic identity, they are powerful words. “You are beautiful just as you are. Don’t be afraid,” Mina Sakai sings to a young, enthusiastic crowd ...

More than a century after colonisation, the Ainu language almost vanished. Now machines are listening to hours of old recordings and learning to give it a new voice. The cassette player would catch ...

In 2009, UNESCO in its “Atlas of the World’s Languages in Danger” designated the Ainu language as being critically endangered. As the most dire of the five categories — only extinct is worse — used in ...

Japan is a nation that often presents itself as ethnically homogenous, but in fact it has an indigenous population called the Ainu. These hunter-gatherers worshiped nature and animals, spoke a ...