Boise State Linguistics Professor Documents Northern Paiute Language To Prevent Extinction

By Molly Wampler

Published July 14, 2020 at 1:13 PM MDT

Tim Thornes, right, with Irwin Weiser, the first native speaker of Northern Paiute with whom Thornes worked on a Yahooskin dialect phrase book.

Language is a critical part of any culture, and when a language is lost to time, so is a part of that culture.

Tim Thornes is a Boise State University linguistics professor who has spent his career learning about and documenting indigenous languages. His most recent project has been on the Northern Paiute language of Idaho, compiling rules and phrases to prevent the language’s extinction.

Tim joins Idaho Matters live to talk more about his preservation project.

Have a question or comment for the show? Tweet @KBSX915 using #IdahoMatters

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Molly Wampler

Molly Wampler is a newsroom intern at Boise State Public Radio. Originally from Berkeley, California, she just graduated from the University of Puget Sound in Washington state. There, Molly worked for her university's newspaper but is stoked to try her hand at and learn all there is to learn about radio journalism.

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