Finding ‘Kape’: How Language Documentation helps us preserve an endangered language

By Francesco Perono Cacciafoco, Associate Professor in Linguistics, Xi'an Jiaotong-Liverpool University

Shiyue Wu, a member of Francesco Perono Cacciafoco’s research team at Xi'an Jiaotong-Liverpool University (XJTLU), who is currently developing intensive fieldwork in Alor Island to document and preserve endangered languages, discovered and first documented Kape during a Language Documentation fieldwork in August 2024 and therefore actively contributed to this study.

As of 2025, more than 7000 languages are spoken across the world. However, only about half of them are properly documented,…

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