Every language is a way the earth learned to speak through people.
When one disappears, something more than words is lost.
What is Tongues of the Earth?
Tongues of the Earth is a documentary series exploring what happens when languages, land, and ways of life are placed at risk by modernization, migration, and loss.
It follows people living at cultural turning points.
Moments where the decision to stay, leave, adapt, or protect knowledge determines whether a language continues to be spoken or quietly fades.
The work is especially attentive to intergenerational transmission, documenting how language, knowledge, and cultural responsibility move between elders, adults, and younger generations in everyday life.
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HOW WE WORK
Tongues of the Earth is built through slow, relationship based documentary practice.
Each chapter develops through listening, presence, and long term engagement alongside the people whose lives carry language forward. Story, access, and pacing are shaped by trust.
Language is approached not only as words, but as a way of being, carried through song, humor, prayer, craft, agriculture, storytelling, and everyday relationships with land and ancestors.
The work unfolds through long term relationships rooted in trust, consent, and accountability, prioritizing listening over visibility and responsibility over access.
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OUR COLLABORATION PRINCIPLES
We collaborate only through trust.
Language and heritage carry real consequences when represented. We work only in ways that honor the people and places at the heart of each story.
We commit to:
Consent led storytelling
Stories are developed with informed, ongoing consent, recognizing that participation, comfort, and context can change over time.
Community defined pacing
Stories unfold on human timelines shaped by relationship, not urgency or external demand.
Shared authorship
Narrative authority is not singular. We prioritize collaboration, dialogue, and local context in how stories are shaped and told.
Reciprocity
Relationships extend beyond filming. Care is given to how work circulates, who benefits from it, and what remains after cameras leave.
Transparency
Intentions, process, and long term goals are shared openly with collaborators throughout the life of the work.
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COMMUNITY PARTNERSHIP: WA.TU.CHI
Wa.tu.chi is a Quechua led collective working to protect language, agricultural knowledge, and cultural continuity in the Andes.
Tongues of the Earth works with Wa.tu.chi through long term, relationship based exchange grounded in reciprocity, listening, and shared values. Our collaboration is shaped by trust rather than predetermined outcomes, allowing story, representation, and pace to emerge through dialogue and consent, rather than extraction or urgency.
This partnership reflects a core principle of the project. Cultural survival is sustained through presence, respect, community, and continuity.
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OUR COLLABORATION ECOSYSTEM
Tongues of the Earth is built through layered collaboration, bringing together community knowledge holders, cultural organizations, and aligned institutions. Each plays a distinct role in sustaining cultural continuity.
Community Knowledge Holders:
We work first and foremost with community members, elders, artists, farmers, storytellers, and cultural stewards whose lived knowledge and consent guide every stage of the work.
Local and Community Led Organizations:
We collaborate with local organizations already engaged in language preservation, cultural continuity, land stewardship, and education, grounding the project in long term community efforts.
Linguists, Translators, and Cultural Researchers
When appropriate, we collaborate with linguists, translators, and cultural researchers to support careful translation, ethical documentation, and the protection of meaning, always in dialogue with community knowledge holders and local consent. Academic collaboration is never prioritized over community authority or cultural sovereignty.
Nonprofits, Cultural Institutions, and NGOs
We partner with mission aligned organizations working in language preservation, cultural heritage, education, and environmental stewardship to support long term impact and responsible circulation of the work.
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WHAT WE AVOID
Tongues of the Earth avoids practices that remove stories from their cultural context or prioritize speed over care.
We do not pursue narratives shaped by spectacle.
We do not film without relationship, consent, and accountability.
We do not reduce communities to deficit or abstraction.
This project is guided by continuity rather than exposure.
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AN ONGOING PRACTICE
If this feels aligned, welcome home
Welcome to Tongues of the Earth.
When we come together as a community, real change can happen.
This work is sustained through a paid member supported circle.
