For Immediate Release: December 7, 2006
Contact:  Alisa Giardinelli    
610-690-5717     
http://www.swarthmore.edu/news/

Swarthmore Linguist on
National Geographic World Talk

Assistant Professor of Linguistics K. David Harrison will discuss global language endangerment on National Geographic World Talk on Sunday, Dec. 10, at 7 p.m.  The episode will also feature former Vice-President Al Gore talking about climate change and Himalayan culture expert Broughton Coburn.

Harrison, the author of When Languages Die: The Extinction of the World's Languages and the Erosion of Human Knowledge (Oxford University Press, 2007), is a specialist in Tuvan and other Siberian languages and has conducted field research on endangered languages of South Siberia and Western Mongolia since 1996. During field expeditions, he lives and travels with nomadic people, accompanying them on their seasonal migrations as they herd camels, horses, yaks, and sheep.  He has also worked with one of the last speakers of the Karaj language in Lithuania and documented language and ethnography in the Philippine highland rice terraces.

National Geographic World Talk is hosted by Patty Kim and broadcast weekly on XM Satellite Radio channel 133. It is also available as a free podcast and may be downloaded from http://podcast.nationalgeographic.com/world-talk/ and from the National Geographic page of iTunes.