Image courtesy Wikitongues. A version of this post was originally published at r12n. Wikitongues founders and directors Daniel Bogre Udell and Frederico Andrade have embraced an ambitious mission to document — and teach — every language in the world. And by “every language,” they really mean every language, including those estimated 3,000+ languages that are unwritten, the world’s 300+ sign languages, and even constructed languages (conlangs) like Esperanto and Lojban. Skepticism about such grand claims is natural, but it’s worth reviewing the project’s work over the past several years, work that may yet warrant such optimism. I recently spoke with them about the development of their language documentation and learning platform called Poly. Wikitongues is a Brooklyn-based nonprofit that emerged from Bogre Udell and Andrade’s shared interest in languages and technology. Bogre Udell, who is also a Global Voices contributor, was raised in a monolingual English household, but his interest in languages was sparked by living in a minority language community. He spent time in Spain, first in Aragon and later in Catalonia. Learning Catalan greatly affected his perspective on languages, and on the world: “I started engaging with Spain in a very different way from most foreigners, and I was engaging in Europe in a way that most Europeans don’t.” Andrade was raised in a bilingual English-Portuguese household, and later picked up several other languages. The founders shared a profound respect for the value of linguistic diversity, and were frustrated that the issue does not loom larger in the public sphere. “Children are taught how many countries there are, and [are] taught the regions of their own country,” Bogre Udell notes. “No one’s taught that there are 7,000 languages. We still see in the media today that linguistic discrimination is still pretty commonplace.” This shared passion for language — paired with their backgrounds in technology and design — provides the theoretical drive and practical foundation for Wikitongues. Some of Wikitongues’ video participants. Image courtesy Wikitounges. In fall 2012, Bogre Udell began video-recording short oral histories of his neighbors in Brooklyn, asking his subjects to speak in their native languages. New York is perhaps the most linguistically diverse city in the world, with more than 700 languages spoken there. Bogre Udell quickly acquired a diverse range of videos which he began posting to a YouTube channel: “In just a few weeks we were able to record something like 40 different languages.” Somewhat to his surprise, he found the channel quickly attracted a global audience. The following spring, Bogre Udell’s friend (and fellow Parsons School of Design alumnus) Andrade joined the effort, and they continued recording videos in New York, and also traveled to collect recordings from communities throughout the US. As the project gained attention and popularity, offers to collaborate began coming in from all over the world. Wikitongues eventually incorporated as a nonprofit, and has coordinated a careful effort to document language via short videos, with a primary focus placed on endangered languages. As of this writing, the Wikitongues YouTube channel boasts 347 videos of languages from every human-inhabited region of the world. The latest video, for example, features speakers of Mirandese, a minority (but co-official) language of Portugal with a few thousand speakers. Documentation is a critical step in the revitalization process of a language, but the path from documentation to producing new speakers is seldom direct. In the late summer of 2014, the Wikitongues founders came across an article describing the work of Marie Wilcox. Wilcox, born in 1933, is the last fluent speaker of Wukchumni, one of many endangered indigenous languages of present-day California. For over a decade, Wilcox had worked with her daughter Jennifer Malone and others to document her language, beginning by jotting words in notebooks and on the backs of envelopes. Bogre Udell and Andrade were deeply moved by her dedication to her work. Through their encounters with people such as Wilcox, the pair also realized that few speakers of endangered languages would be willing or able to participate in a similar dictionary-creation project. “This super-laborious process, over the course of years and years and years,” as Andrade puts it, was simply out of reach for most people. For Wikitongues to make the step from being a language documentation initiative to a language revitalization initiative, they would need to help speakers like Wilcox, and the speakers in their videos, connect more intentionally with language learners.