Thirteen years into his pet project, Ran Maowen, 59, a farmer in central China's Hunan Province, remains busy compiling a dictionary that he hopes will save his ethnic language.

"A vast majority of young people here can no longer speak our unique language. I fear it might die out in a couple of decades," said Ran, who a member of the Tujia ethnic minority.

"We need to do something to save our language."

He started the project after he left his teaching post at a primary school in Longshan County in western Hunan in 1993.

Tujia, one of 55 Chinese ethnic minorities, has a a population of 5.7 million who mainly live in west Hunan and east Sichuan Province in southwest China.

In order to record the language, he talked with elders as he traveled to village bazaars and attended weddings and funerals in western Hunan.

"More than 100,000 entries will be included in the dictionary, and every entry will be provided with its pronunciation, definition and Chinese translation," he said.

The dictionary will be published early next May, he added.

(Xinhua News Agency September 8, 2006)