Computers and Internet are being used by people and scientists to save endangered languages, linguists with teams creating programs and online dictionaries, the second project presented at a science conference in Vancouver.

More than half of the approximately 7000 languages and dialects are still spoken on the planet will be gone by the end of the century victims of cultural changes of government repression and other problems, according to estimates from the scientific community.

David Harrison, a professor of linguistics at the University Swartmore (Pennsylvania), is a major contributor to the creation of eight specialized dictionaries as part of a project sponsored by the Society National Geographic , which publishes the famous magazine.

Harrison presented his work at the annual conference of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), which is held since Thursday in Vancouver (Western Canada) and continue through Monday.

“The positive effect of globalization makes it possible that today is a language spoken by few people and in some very isolated places has, thanks to digital technology, a presence and a global audience,” Harrison said during the conference of AAAS.

“The extinction of languages is not inevitable,” he insisted, revealing “a tendency to linguistic revitalization these last ten years throughout the world.”

“The small language communities as false the choice faced by hearing that his tongue had been overcome and that they needed to renounce it in order to embrace modernity,” criticized Harrison. But now, “these language groups are realizing that they can also be citizens of the world, learning the global language like English, preserving their traditional language and vast knowledge” related to her ancestors, she said.