Jean-Phillippe Delhomme Speaking in tounges
There are approximately 6,500 living languages; more than half of them are spoken by fewer than 10,000 people. Here, three that you can brush up on while traveling—no Ph.D. in linguistics required.
Gullah Experience a native tongue of the rural South with Gullah Tours (843/763-7551; gullahtours.com; two-hour tours $18), which deploys the 300-year-old language on excursions in Charleston, S.C. (the Underground Railroad, the Old Slave Mart).
Gaelic An Darach Ltd. (44-131/664-2606; andarach.com; $50 per hour) incorporates the historic language of Scotland into personalized half-day to three-day trips throughout the Scottish Highlands and islands.
Inuktitut To revitalize a dialect of Labrador and Newfoundland, Rosetta Stone’s Endangered Language Program (800/788-0822; rosettastone.com; $100 per CD or one year of online instruction) created an interactive CD-ROM to teach speaking, reading, and writing skills with photos.
Take a listen before it's too late.
Though fewer people speak these languages today, they still thrive in smaller communities. Here, some clips of dialects that are slowly disappearing—Inuktitut, Gaelic, and Gullah.
Inuktitut is spoken throughout northern Canada.
A South Carolinian fluent in Gullah gives a quick lesson.
A teacher asks"What's your name?" in Gaelic.
A teacher asks "How are you?" in Gaelic.
