Moviegoers are accustomed to subtitles for films in foreign languages. What's not quite as common, is needing subtitles because the spoken language has been extinct since the 18th century.
An animated action film that opened in Colombian theaters last month tells the tale of Tundama, the 16th century ruler of an indigenous Andean group who fought hard to resist Spanish invaders. Tundama would have spoken Muisca, which was once a common language in Colombia's central highlands, but disappeared around 1770.
The film's producers and directors worked with linguists and anthropologists to translate their script to Muisca, and to train actors to speak it.
