Geldof and BBC plan 'Dictionary of Man' Web site

Bob Geldof and the BBC are planning to set up a Web site they say will be a definitive guide to mankind.

The Dictionary of Man (http://www.dictionaryofman.com/) and an eight-part television series aim to document every human society currently existing, the BBC said on its Web site.

Geldof said the Web site would create the largest living record of DVDs, books, films, photographs, art, and documented and personal accounts from people in every group in society.

"This will be an A-to-Z of mankind," Geldof said during the launch of the project this week.

"It will catalogue the world we live in now, the people who share this planet, the way we live and the way we adapt to face common and different challenges."

The Web site will also include social-networking technology so that individuals can trace their clan, tribe or family.

Geldof, who has spearheaded several campaigns against global poverty, said the idea for the Web site came after a meeting 20 years ago with a regional governor in northern Niger who told him that 300 languages had disappeared in two years during a famine.

"Even though I never heard those languages, I already miss them," he said. "In these ways the lights of human genius wink out."

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