Extinct American Indian languages saved by work of eccentric linguist who died decades ago

The first time Jose Freeman heard his tribe's lost language through the crackle of a 70-year-old recording, he cried.

"My ancestors were speaking to me," Freeman said of the sounds captured when American Indians still inhabited California's Salinas Valley. "It was like coming home."

The last native speaker of Salinan died almost a half-century ago, but today many indigenous people are finding their extinct or endangered tongues, one word or song at a time, thanks to a linguist who died in 1961 and scholars at the University of California, Davis, who are working to transcribe his life's obsession.

Linguist John Peabody …