Category Archives: New York Times

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Preserving Endangered Languages

Yesterday The New York Times had a good piece on endangered languages, which describes a joint effort between the National Geographic Society and the Living Tongues Institute for Endangered Languages to record languages on the verge of extinction. My favorite factoid: a group of Andean natives called the Kallawaya, who speak Spanish and Quechua in daily life, have a secret language that’s mostly used to describe medicinal plants.

Wordie is doing its small part to preserve language. Long after Wrigley has thrown in the towel on strappleberry, this important word will remain forever enshrined here.

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From the NY Times Morgue

This photo of the back of a photo was posted yesterday on Paper Cuts, the New York Times book blog. I love the juxtaposition of so many kinds of text–handwritten notes in pen and pencil, stamps in different colored inks, pasted on bits of newsprint.

Digital objects can develop their own patina (like the digressions on digressions in the conversations on a good Wordie word), but some kinds of beauty require this sort of physical manipulation over time.

The Twombly link in the second comment on the original post is worth following, too.