Remember when Google used to just be a way of looking things up? Now it’s all about driverless cars and crazy glasses and, as of very recently, efforts to help languages from vanishing. Google.org, the company’s non-profit wing has started an online effort to preserve those languages. Of some 7000 languages currently being spoken worldwide, half won’t survive the current century, according to a video accompanying the project.
This endangered languages website project, backed by the newly formed Alliance for Linguistic Diversity, aims to be a sort of consortium for independent efforts globally, clearinghouse for collected elements and living online museum where people can access research and share their knowledge of the languages being preserved.