The Power of Comiсs. How a community art project helps revive endangered national languages

National languages are dying out. UNESCO’s «Atlas of the World’s Languages in Danger» proves that. Researchers believe that languages disappear for many reasons: people tend to live in cities where they speak the dominant language, forget cultural traditions, the number of native speakers shrinks. The state's attitude to language saving also plays a huge role.

According to UNESCO’s «Atlas of the World’s Languages in Danger», over the past ten years, the situation with the Finno-Ugric languages has not changed: Karelian and Komi belong to the group of languages «at risk» (researchers believe that the number of speakers is not going to rise). Veps, Votic, Ingrian, and other languages of the Sámi subgroup are getting closer to the «serious» and «critical danger» (the number of speakers is up to several hundreds). In Finland, three languages of the Sámi subgroup may disappear.

The international Living Language Project arouses interest in learning languages with the help of comics. Its initiators from Moscow and Finland and participants in Murmansk Oblast, Karelia and Komi told «7×7» about what is happening to national languages in Russia and abroad. You can read their stories here.