Just found out about the Rosetta Project via this wired article. The Rosetta project is an open-source collaborative project with the aim of creating a modern Rosetta stone (in this case a 3-inch nickel disk) archiving 1,400 of the 7,000 (who counted, btw? and how?) world languages.

Reading about it also led me to OLAC which is:

'an international partnership of institutions and individuals who are creating a worldwide virtual library of language resources by: (i) developing consensus on best current practice for the digital archiving of language resources, and (ii) developing a network of interoperating repositories and services for housing and accessing such resources.'

All this collaborative, open-source grooviness. And the joy of following one interesting link to another. It's like some kind of 'world-wide-web' or something. How long until it all gets spoiled by commercialism and we end up with pop-ups all over the place?

B-)

ps 'interoperating repositories' - wish I'd coined that one