http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A6ArylRGWME
This link is to a YouTube video of actress Iris DeMent singing "Pretty Saro" from the movie Song Catcher. Song Catcher is about a female musicologist, Dr. Lily Penleric, who in the early 1900's goes to live with her sister in the Appalachian mountains of North Carolina. "There, she discovers a treasure trove of traditional English ballads, which have been preserved by the secluded mountain people since the colonial period of the 1600s and 1700s. Lily decides to record and transcribe the songs and share them with the outside world."
It's a fascinating movie about how when language is isolated, when there are no outside linguistic influences, it can be preserved. I loved the movie when I saw it a few years ago and think it directly relates to the subject of this class; the study of language. I think it would be fascinating to study and preserve a language that has either presumed to have been lost or is in danger of being lost.
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