A Chilean indigenous language vanishes as last native speaker dies

FILE PHOTO: The last woman from a tribe Yagan and speaker of this language, Cristina Calderon, 91, speaks during an interview with Reuters at her house in Ukika village, Puerto Williams, Chile May 17, 2019. Picture taken May 17, 2019. REUTERS/Jorge Vega/File Photo

SANTIAGO (Reuters) - An indigenous language from South America's extreme south has all but vanished after the death of its last living speaker and guardian of its ancestral culture.

Cristina Calderon died on Wednesday, aged 93. She had mastered the Yamana language of the Yagan community and after the death of her sister in 2003 was the last person in the world who could speak it. She worked to save her knowledge by creating a dictionary of the language with translations to Spanish.