September 18, 2007—In the vast outback of northern Australia, the native languages of the Aborigines are slowly dying. But a team of explorers and linguists are fighting to keep these dialects alive through the five-year Enduring Voices project, funded by the National Geographic Society. (National Geographic News is part of the National Geographic Society.)

Watch as the team tracks down speakers of Australia's most imperiled languages—including the only known speaker of a language long thought to be extinct—and learn why losing the wisdom of these mother tongues is a "tragedy for humanity."