As we celebrate International Mother Language Day today, I
couldn’t be more pleased to introduce linguist and National
Geographic Fellow K. David Harrison. Harrison has been
instrumental in helping to increase awareness of the value of
language diversity, something very near and dear to us at
Microsoft. By highlighting the different ways of thinking that
languages provide, his work has also increased attention and
funding to helping small languages survive. Notes Harrison, “The
Panau language of Papua New Guinea, with just about 600
speakers, went from never having been written at all to having
an online talking dictionary, thanks to efforts by the community
and by linguists.” Harrison documents endangered and little-
studied languages around the world including India, Siberia,
Bolivia and Mongolia, promoting their survival. He says, “If
education is about transmitting ideas, and human intellectual
diversity, then all languages— not just politically dominant
tongues—should have a place in the classroom, in tec