The Linguists
Encyclopedia
The Linguists is an independent
2008 American documentary film
produced by Ironbound Films
about language extinction and language documentation
. It follows two linguists, Greg Anderson
of the Living Tongues Institute for Endangered Languages
and David Harrison
of Swarthmore College
, as they travel around the world to collect recordings of some of the last speakers of three moribund (dying) languages: Chulym
in Siberia
; Sora
in Orissa
, India
; and Kallawaya
in Bolivia
.
, Lithuania
, he could not read Yiddish
inscriptions on a path in spite of his Jewish heritage. He joined with Daniel A. Miller in 2003 to form Ironbound Films, and received a $520,000 grant from the National Science Foundation
to support the film. Later in 2003, the directors chose Anderson
and Harrison to be the protagonists of the film. In 2004, director Jeremy Newberger joined the project.
It took three years to film The Linguists, and during this time over 200 hours of film were collected. During this time, the cast and crew travelled to numerous remote areas that one reporter describes as "godforsaken," and coped with physical ailments such as altitude sickness
; Newberger has recounted that they coped with altitude sickness in the Andes by drinking "10 cups a day" of tea made from coca
leaves, one of the main ingredients in the psychoactive drug cocaine
.
The film was completed in fall 2007.
, to villages in Siberia, to English
-Hindi boarding schools in Orissa, India, and to an American Indian reservation
in Arizona
.
The film addresses issues including the spread of major global languages
and how they contribute to language extinction; political and social reasons that some languages have been repressed; and reasons that language revitalization and language documentation are important (including both maintaining a scientific record of that language, and preserving unique local knowledge and history that is only carried in the local language).
, and later had success on the "indie film circuit." It also received attention among the linguistics community on websites such as Language Log
.
The film has been lauded as "the talk of the town at Sundance;" "a fascinating journey;" "funny, enlightening and ultimately uplifting;" "a hoot;" and “shaggy and bittersweet.” While it received some minor criticism for choppy, confusing editing, the subject matter has been called "fascinating" and "compelling," and the spirit of the film's protagonists has been compared to Indiana Jones
.
Independent film
An independent film, or indie film, is a professional film production resulting in a feature film that is produced mostly or completely outside of the major film studio system. In addition to being produced and distributed by independent entertainment companies, independent films are also produced...
2008 American documentary film
Documentary film
Documentary films constitute a broad category of nonfictional motion pictures intended to document some aspect of reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction or maintaining a historical record...
produced by Ironbound Films
Ironbound Films
Ironbound Films is an independent documentary film production company. Their films often focus on stories of how people succeed and fail to connect. Their 2008 film The Linguists and 2010 film The New Recruits, were about characters whose missteps often undermined their stated intentions but also...
about language extinction and language documentation
Language documentation
Language documentation is the process by which a language is documented from a documentary linguistics perspective. It aims to “to provide a comprehensive record of the linguistic practices characteristic of a given speech community”...
. It follows two linguists, Greg Anderson
Gregory Anderson (linguist)
Gregory David Shelton Anderson is a Director of the Living Tongues Institute for Endangered Languages and a leading specialist in Munda languages. Anderson earned his doctorate in linguistics from the University of Chicago in 2000. He is currently working on the .Anderson has also been featured in...
of the Living Tongues Institute for Endangered Languages
Living Tongues Institute for Endangered Languages
The Living Tongues Institute for Endangered Languages is an organization based in Salem, Oregon, United States that scientifically documents endangered languages, and assists communities with maintaining and revitalizing knowledge of their native languages. The institute is led by two linguists,...
and David Harrison
K. David Harrison
K. David Harrison is a linguist, author and activist for the documentation and preservation of endangered languages teaching at Swarthmore College and affiliated with the National Geographic Society. His research focuses on the Turkic languages of central Siberia and western Mongolia. He co-starred...
of Swarthmore College
Swarthmore College
Swarthmore College is a private, independent, liberal arts college in the United States with an enrollment of about 1,500 students. The college is located in the borough of Swarthmore, Pennsylvania, 11 miles southwest of Philadelphia....
, as they travel around the world to collect recordings of some of the last speakers of three moribund (dying) languages: Chulym
Chulym language
Chulym , also known as Chulim, Chulym-Turkic, Küerik, Chulym Tatar or Melets Tatar is the language of the Chulyms. The name the people use to refer to themselves, and also to their language, is Ös, literally ‘self’ or ‘own’...
in Siberia
Siberia
Siberia is an extensive region constituting almost all of Northern Asia. Comprising the central and eastern portion of the Russian Federation, it was part of the Soviet Union from its beginning, as its predecessor states, the Tsardom of Russia and the Russian Empire, conquered it during the 16th...
; Sora
Sora language
Sora is a Munda language of India, spoken by some 288,000 native speakers in South Orissa in eastern India, mainly in the Ganjam District, but also in the Koraput and Phulbani districts; other communities exist in Andhra Pradesh , Madhya Pradesh, Bihar, Tamil Nadu, West Bengal, and the...
in Orissa
Orissa
Orissa , officially Odisha since Nov 2011, is a state of India, located on the east coast of India, by the Bay of Bengal. It is the modern name of the ancient nation of Kalinga, which was invaded by the Maurya Emperor Ashoka in 261 BC. The modern state of Orissa was established on 1 April...
, India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
; and Kallawaya
Kallawaya language
Kallawaya, also Callahuaya or Callawalla is an endangered, secret, mixed language in Bolivia. It is spoken by the Kallawaya people, a group of traditional itinerant healers in the Andes in their medicinal healing practice....
in Bolivia
Bolivia
Bolivia officially known as Plurinational State of Bolivia , is a landlocked country in central South America. It is the poorest country in South America...
.
Production
Seth Kramer, one of the directors, describes how he first got the idea for The Linguists when, in VilniusVilnius
Vilnius is the capital of Lithuania, and its largest city, with a population of 560,190 as of 2010. It is the seat of the Vilnius city municipality and of the Vilnius district municipality. It is also the capital of Vilnius County...
, Lithuania
Lithuania
Lithuania , officially the Republic of Lithuania is a country in Northern Europe, the biggest of the three Baltic states. It is situated along the southeastern shore of the Baltic Sea, whereby to the west lie Sweden and Denmark...
, he could not read Yiddish
Yiddish language
Yiddish is a High German language of Ashkenazi Jewish origin, spoken throughout the world. It developed as a fusion of German dialects with Hebrew, Aramaic, Slavic languages and traces of Romance languages...
inscriptions on a path in spite of his Jewish heritage. He joined with Daniel A. Miller in 2003 to form Ironbound Films, and received a $520,000 grant from the National Science Foundation
National Science Foundation
The National Science Foundation is a United States government agency that supports fundamental research and education in all the non-medical fields of science and engineering. Its medical counterpart is the National Institutes of Health...
to support the film. Later in 2003, the directors chose Anderson
Gregory Anderson (linguist)
Gregory David Shelton Anderson is a Director of the Living Tongues Institute for Endangered Languages and a leading specialist in Munda languages. Anderson earned his doctorate in linguistics from the University of Chicago in 2000. He is currently working on the .Anderson has also been featured in...
and Harrison to be the protagonists of the film. In 2004, director Jeremy Newberger joined the project.
It took three years to film The Linguists, and during this time over 200 hours of film were collected. During this time, the cast and crew travelled to numerous remote areas that one reporter describes as "godforsaken," and coped with physical ailments such as altitude sickness
Altitude sickness
Altitude sickness—also known as acute mountain sickness , altitude illness, hypobaropathy, or soroche—is a pathological effect of high altitude on humans, caused by acute exposure to low partial pressure of oxygen at high altitude...
; Newberger has recounted that they coped with altitude sickness in the Andes by drinking "10 cups a day" of tea made from coca
Coca
Coca, Erythroxylum coca, is a plant in the family Erythroxylaceae, native to western South America. The plant plays a significant role in many traditional Andean cultures...
leaves, one of the main ingredients in the psychoactive drug cocaine
Cocaine
Cocaine is a crystalline tropane alkaloid that is obtained from the leaves of the coca plant. The name comes from "coca" in addition to the alkaloid suffix -ine, forming cocaine. It is a stimulant of the central nervous system, an appetite suppressant, and a topical anesthetic...
.
The film was completed in fall 2007.
Content
The film begins with the fact that a large proportion of the world's languages (half, out of a total of 7,000, according to the film) are going extinct. The film's two protagonists, Anderson and Harrison, set out both to gather recordings of several endangered languages in order to document these languages later, and to educate viewers about the current rate of language extinction. In the process, they travel to the Andes mountains in South AmericaSouth America
South America is a continent situated in the Western Hemisphere, mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere. The continent is also considered a subcontinent of the Americas. It is bordered on the west by the Pacific Ocean and on the north and east...
, to villages in Siberia, to English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
-Hindi boarding schools in Orissa, India, and to an American Indian reservation
Indian reservation
An American Indian reservation is an area of land managed by a Native American tribe under the United States Department of the Interior's Bureau of Indian Affairs...
in Arizona
Arizona
Arizona ; is a state located in the southwestern region of the United States. It is also part of the western United States and the mountain west. The capital and largest city is Phoenix...
.
The film addresses issues including the spread of major global languages
World language
A world language is a language spoken internationally which is learned by many people as a second language. A world language is not only characterized by the number of its speakers , but also by its geographical distribution, and its use in international organizations and in diplomatic relations...
and how they contribute to language extinction; political and social reasons that some languages have been repressed; and reasons that language revitalization and language documentation are important (including both maintaining a scientific record of that language, and preserving unique local knowledge and history that is only carried in the local language).
Reception
The film was screened at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival2008 Sundance Film Festival
The 2008 Sundance Film Festival ran from January 17, 2008 to January 27 in Park City, Utah. It was the 24th iteration of the Sundance Film Festival. The opening night film was In Bruges and the closing night film was CSNY Déjà Vu.-Films:...
, and later had success on the "indie film circuit." It also received attention among the linguistics community on websites such as Language Log
Language Log
Language Log is a collaborative language blog maintained by University of Pennsylvania phonetician Mark Liberman.The site is updated daily at the whims of the contributors, and most of the posts are on language use in the media and popular culture. Google search results are frequently used as a...
.
The film has been lauded as "the talk of the town at Sundance;" "a fascinating journey;" "funny, enlightening and ultimately uplifting;" "a hoot;" and “shaggy and bittersweet.” While it received some minor criticism for choppy, confusing editing, the subject matter has been called "fascinating" and "compelling," and the spirit of the film's protagonists has been compared to Indiana Jones
Indiana Jones
Colonel Henry Walton "Indiana" Jones, Jr., Ph.D. is a fictional character and the protagonist of the Indiana Jones franchise. George Lucas and Steven Spielberg created the character in homage to the action heroes of 1930s film serials...
.