allthingslinguistic.com

Folks, there’s nothing left from the Linguistics division. We lost all the indigenous languages collection: the recordings since 1958, the chants in all the languages for which there are no native speakers alive anymore, the Curt Niemuendaju archives: papers, photos, negatives, the original ethnic-historic-linguistic map localizing all the ethnic groups in Brazil, the only record that we had from 1945. The ethnological and archeological references of all ethnic groups in Brazil since the 16th century… An irreparable loss of our historic memory. It just hurts so much to see all in ashes.

Cira Gonda, translated by Diogo Almeida, about the fire at Brazil’s National Museum.

[somethingoddinsod]

I don’t think enough people really understand yet exactly how horrific this fire was. This was a loss to our world and species.

This is the kind of fire we think of thousands of years later as the deepest of tragedy. On the scale of the Library of Alexandria. It’s worse than that really. The Library of Alexandria kept copies of books in other locations so historically very little was lost in individual fires over the centuries.

This? We lost so goddamn much in one night.

If you want to help… if you have ANY vacation photos, videos, anything documenting the contents of the museum: You may in fact be the sole owner of a slice of humanity’s soul.

Please send a copy to:

https://twitter.com/Wikipedia/status/1037066123869483008

Or:

https://twitter.com/bhavani_castro/status/1036626001143455745

More details on the fire here:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/kristinakillgrove/2018/09/05/heres-how-you-can-help-document-rios-national-museum-collections-after-the-catastrophic-fire/#5469542f3dac