How a community-led campaign is helping save Nigeria’s Kam language

Global Voices reports on a language preservation project in Nigeria that reimagines how endangered languages get documented. Kam, spoken in twenty-nine villages in Taraba State with eight thousand to eleven thousand speakers, had no written record, dictionary, or audio documentation before two thousand sixteen. Linguist Dr. Jakob Lesage trained fourteen community members as the documentation team, rather than conducting the research himself. Over ten years, they produced grammar materials, a digital dictionary, three hundred seven recordings, and a dedicated website—all materials whose scope and content were shaped by the community team's own priorities for preserving their language.

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