Linguistics doctoral candidate Andrea Muru said her father’s first language is Maori, and she can’t speak it.

Preserving Maori, an indigenous language from New Zealand, and in turn other endangered languages, is important to Muru because she witnessed a language almost dying out, she said.

Muru is a part of the organizing committee hosting Endangered Languages Week from Monday to Friday. Lectures and performances throughout the week aim to create awareness about lesser-spoken languages and preserving endangered ones.

Languages in danger of ceasing to be spoken because there aren’t many speakers left are considered endangered, she said.

“We have talks on languages in endangerment and revitalization,” Muru said.

Andrea Muru’s father Tiri Muru said he will chant the “Maori Haka,” a traditional war cry, during “Verbal Arts in the World’s Languages” on Wednesday.

Tiri Muru said he is honored to perform the chant of his tribe but has mixed feelings about it.

“I am doing it a disservice because Maori Haka is performed by a group, but it is only me,” he said.

He hopes to make an impact and help people understand more about Maori.

“People who can speak it [Maori] fluently are dying off,” Tiri Muru said.

Students are likely to hear the languages they have only read about in class, said Lori Pierce, linguistics graduate teaching assistant.

“These are the actual people who are speaking this language, and this is how it sounds,” she said. “It is one thing to talk about something and one to see it in action — makes it more real.”

She encouraged students in her “Language in a Multicultural USA” class to participate in the week because they will get to hear the languages they only read about.

Linguistics and TESOL chairwoman Colleen Fitzgerald said preserving endangered languages is a subject close to her heart, and she has spent 20 years researching endangered languages in various communities.

Through the Endangered Languages Week, Fitzgerald said she hopes to make the voice of lesser spoken languages heard.

She said the events in the week are geared toward informing students about some languages they might have never heard of and didn’t know much about.

Endangered Languages Week schedule:

Monday

When: Noon
What: “Taiwan’s Endangered Aboriginal Languages”
Speaker: Professor emeritus Jerold Edmondson
Where: Chemistry and Physics Building Room 303

Tuesday

Time: Noon
What: “Verbal Arts in Native American Languages”
Events include: Performance by Comanche elder and storyteller Sandra Karty, a blessing from a Choctaw elder and a performance by Choctaw singers.
Where: Trimble Hall 200

Time: 5 p.m.
What: “State of the State: Oklahoma Native Languages in the 21st Century”
Speaker: Mary Linn, University of Oklahoma linguistics associate professor in the anthropology department and Associate Curator of Native American Languages in the Sam Noble Oklahoma Museum of Natural History.
Where: University Hall Room 011

Wednesday

Time: Noon
What: “Verbal Arts in the World’s Languages”
Performances include: Student poetry recitations/songs in Nepalese and a “Maori Haka,” a war cry in Maori — a New Zealand indigenous language
Where: Trimble Hall 200

Time: 5 p.m.
What: “Extreme Literacy: Developing an Orthography for an Unwritten Language”
Speaker: Michael Cahill, applied linguistics adjunct assistant professor at the Graduate Institute of Applied Linguistics
Where: University Hall Room 011

Thursday

Time: Noon
What: “Verbal Arts in the Languages of Africa”
Performances include: Lord’s Prayer in Amharic and a story in Kabiye
Where: Trimble Hall Room 200

Time: 5 p.m.
What: Screening of The Linguists followed by a panel discussion.
Where: University Hall Room 011

Friday

Time: Noon
What: “Chickasaw Language Revitalization Program”
Performers: Chickasaw representatives
Where: Trimble Hall Room 115

Source: Andrea Muru and http://ling.uta.edu/endangeredweek/