WHY WE SHOULD CARE ABOUT LANGUAGE DEATH Wael
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The Hudson River Valley Review
THE HUDSON RIVER VA LLEY REVIEW A Journal of Regional Studies The Hudson River Valley Institute at Marist College is supported by a major grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities. Publisher Thomas S. Wermuth, Vice President for Academic Affairs, Marist College Editors Christopher Pryslopski, Program Director, Hudson River Valley Institute, Marist College Reed Sparling, Writer, Scenic Hudson Editorial Board The Hudson River Valley Review Myra Young Armstead, Professor of History, (ISSN 1546-3486) is published twice Bard College a year by The Hudson River Valley BG (Ret) Lance Betros, Provost, U.S. Army War Institute at Marist College. College Executive Director Kim Bridgford, Professor of English, West Chester James M. Johnson, University Poetry Center and Conference The Dr. Frank T. Bumpus Chair in Michael Groth, Professor of History, Frances Hudson River Valley History Tarlton Farenthold Presidential Professor Research Assistant Susan Ingalls Lewis, Associate Professor of History, Laila Shawwa State University of New York at New Paltz Hudson River Valley Institute Sarah Olson, Superintendent, Advisory Board Roosevelt-Vanderbilt National Historic Sites Alex Reese, Chair Barnabas McHenry, Vice Chair Roger Panetta, Visiting Professor of History, Peter Bienstock Fordham University Margaret R. Brinckerhoff H. Daniel Peck, Professor of English Emeritus, Dr. Frank T. Bumpus Vassar College Frank J. Doherty Robyn L. Rosen, Professor of History, BG (Ret) Patrick J. Garvey Marist College Shirley M. Handel Maureen Kangas David P. Schuyler, Arthur and Katherine Shadek Mary Etta Schneider Professor of Humanities and American Studies, Gayle Jane Tallardy Franklin & Marshall College Robert E. Tompkins Sr. COL Ty Seidule, Professor and Acting Head, Denise Doring VanBuren Department of History, U.S. -
Language Obsolescence and Language Death*
Pierre Swiggers UDK81'0 C.I.D.G., Leuven TWO KEY CONCEPTS OF LANGUAGE ENDANGERMENT: LANGUAGE OBSOLESCENCE AND LANGUAGE DEATH* O. Introduction In the past few decades the growing awareness, among language comrnunities and linguists, ofthe seriously endangered position ofthe majority ofthe world's languages has led to various initiatives aiming at revitalizing or maintaining threatened languages: documentation, preparation of didactic materials and language courses, training of instructors, language survival programs, specialized conferences and scholarly publications, claiming oflinguistic-political rights, language awareness programs, etc. 1 Language endangerment and the position of minority languages have become part of the political and cultural agendas worldwide. In 1992 the Council ofEurope adopted the European charter for regional and minority languages, protecting the rights of minority languages (the Charter became effective on March 1, 1998; it has, however, not yet been ratified by several European countries). Language policy is also becoming a sensitive issue in the Russian Federation. In the United States two Native American Languages Acts were passed (in 1990 and 1992), promoting and guaranteeing the rights ofNative Americans to use and protect their languages. A number of Latin American countries now also have started to protect the rights of their native languages. Within UNESCO 2 the problem of endangered languages has received much attention ; the World Languages Report is housed at the organization's Basque centre. Various national and intemational centres and websites for the documentation, study and support of endangered languages have been created; the Intemational Clearing House for Endangered Languages is based 3 in Tokyo • The aim of the present paper is to offer an elaborate definition of two key concepts in the study oflanguage endangerment, viz. -
Language Loss Phenomenon in Taiwan: a Narrative Inquiry—Autobiography and Phenomenological Study
Language Loss Phenomenon in Taiwan: A Narrative Inquiry—Autobiography and Phenomenological Study By Wan-Hua Lai A Thesis submitted to the Faculty of Graduate Studies of The University of Manitoba in partial fulfilment of the requirements of the degree of MASTER OF EDUCATION Department of Curriculum, Teaching, and Learning University of Manitoba, Faculty of Education Winnipeg Copyright © 2012 by Wan-Hua Lai ii Table of Content Table of Content…………………………………………………………………………………………………..……ii List of Tables…………………………………………………………………………………………………..……...viii List of Figures……………………………………………………………………………………………………………ix Abstract…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………...xi Acknowledgement………………………………………………………………………………………………..…xii Dedication………………………………………………………………………………………………………………xiv Chapter One: Introduction…………………………………………………………………………………….….1 Mandarin Research Project……………………………………………………………………………………2 Confusion about My Mother Tongue……………………………………………………….……………2 From Mandarin to Taigi………………………………………………………………………………………..3 Taiwan, a Colonial Land………………………………………………………………………………………..3 Study on the Language Loss in Taiwan………………………………………………………………….4 Archival Research………………………………………………………………………………………………….4 Chapter Two: My Discovery- A Different History of Taiwan……………………………………….6 Geography…………………………………………………………………………………………………………….7 Population……………………………………………….…………………………………………………….……9 Culture…………………………………………………………………………………………..……………………..9 Society………………………………………………………………………………..………………………………10 Education…………………………………………………………………………………………………….………11 Economy……………………………………………………………………………………….…………….………11 -
Language Endangerment: Problems and Solutions
Language Endangerment: Problems and Solutions Author(s): Julia Sallabank Source: eSharp , Special Issue: Communicating Change: Representing Self and Community in a Technological World (2010), pp. 50-87 URL: http://www.gla.ac.uk/esharp ISSN: 1742-4542 Copyright in this work remains with the author. _______________________________________________________ eSharp is an international online journal for postgraduate research in the arts, humanities, social sciences and education. Based at the University of Glasgow and run by graduate students, it aims to provide a critical but supportive entry to academic publishing for emerging academics, including postgraduates and recent postdoctoral students. [email protected] eSharp Special Issue: Communicating Change Language Endangerment: Problems and Solutions Dr. Julia Sallabank (Endangered Languages Academic Programme, School of Oriental and African Studies, London) How do we count languages? Overviews of the study of language endangerment usually start with a list of statistics about the number of languages in the world, the proportion considered endangered, etc. The usual source of statistics concerning the number of languages and their users is Ethnologue , subtitled ‘An encyclopaedic reference work cataloguing all of the world’s 6,909 known living languages’ (Lewis 2009). Many people are surprised to hear that there are so many languages in the world. However, this headline figure masks inherent problems in the counting of languages, as the Introduction to Ethnologue itself recognises. Many linguists use the criterion of mutual comprehensibility to distinguish languages: if users of two language varieties cannot understand each other, the varieties are considered to be different languages. If they can understand each other, the varieties are considered mutually comprehensible dialects of the same language. -
Researching and Reviving the Unami Language of the Lenape
Endangered Languages, Linguistics, and Culture: Researching and Reviving the Unami Language of the Lenape By Maureen Hoffmann A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the degree of Bachelor of Arts in Anthropology and Linguistics Bryn Mawr College May 2009 Table of Contents Abstract........................................................................................................................... 3 Acknowledgments........................................................................................................... 4 List of Figures................................................................................................................. 5 I. Introduction ................................................................................................................. 6 II. The Lenape People and Their Languages .................................................................. 9 III. Language Endangerment and Language Loss ........................................................ 12 a. What is language endangerment?.......................................................................... 12 b. How does a language become endangered?.......................................................... 14 c. What can save a language from dying?................................................................. 17 d. The impact of language loss on culture ................................................................ 20 e. The impact of language loss on academia............................................................. 21 IV. -
Vidunda (G38) As an Endangered Language?
Vidunda (G38) as an Endangered Language? Karsten Legère University of Gothenburg 1. The position of Swahili and other Tanzanian languages Tanzania is a multi-ethnic and, as a consequence, multi-lingual country. This fact is reflected in the existence of approximately 120 ethnonyms according to the 1967 population census (Tanzania 1971). The most recent edition of Ethnologue (Gordon 2005) lists 128 languages (of which one is extinct) and glossonyms accordingly. This number recently grew even bigger when the results of a country-wide survey under the auspices of LoT1 were released (LoT 2006). Thus, the survey added approximately 80 more glossonyms to the existing lists published by, for example, Polomé & Hill (1980) and Ethnologue. As known, many glossonyms refer to language varieties which are mutually intelligible with those spoken mainly by neighboring ethnic groups or nationalities. People who claim to speak a language of their own frequently understand that of their neighbors, although the latter’s variety is terminologically distinct from the former.2 Hence, the high number of glossonyms is linguistically not relevant for adequately describing the factual situation, which is often characterized by a dialect continuum. In other words, dialect clusters which are comprised of “languages” (as expressed by particular glossonyms) may definitely reduce the number of Tanzanian languages. However, to which number a necessary linguistic and terminological recategorization may ultimately lead is still an open question. The informal and formal spread of Swahili (henceforth called L2) as a language of wider distribution/lingua franca (the national and co-official3 language; see Legère 2006b for discussion) has increasingly limited the use of all other Tanzanian languages (henceforth referred to as L1s). -
Judeo-‐Spanish and the Sephardi
The Last Generation of Native Ladino Speakers? Judeo-Spanish and the Sephardic Community in Seattle Mary K. FitzMorris A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts University of Washington 2014 Faculty advisor: Devin E. Naar Program Authorized to Offer Degree: Spanish & Portuguese Studies 2 © Copyright 2014 Mary K. FitzMorris 3 University of Washington Abstract The Last Generation of Native Ladino Speakers? Judeo-Spanish and the Sephardic Community in Seattle Mary K. FitzMorris Faculty advisor: Devin E. Naar, Marsha and Jay Glazer Chair in Jewish Studies, Assistant Professor of History, Chair of the Sephardic Studies Program La comunidad sefardí de Seattle, Washington es única no sólo por su tamaño en comparación con el tamaño de la ciudad, sino también por la cohesión que se percibe que existe aquí (Bejarano y Aizenberg, 2012, p. 40n2). Esta comunidad tiene dos sinagogas, varios organizaciones y grupos religiosos y culturales, y, más importantemente, un grupo de hablantes que se reúne cada semana para leer textos en judeo-español y “echar lashon” sobre sus experiencias con esta lengua. De hecho, Seattle es una de las pocas ciudades en el mundo que quedan con una población respetable de ladinohablantes. El judeo-español, o ladino, la lengua histórica de los judíos sefardíes, nació cuando los judíos hispanohablantes fueron expulsados de España en 1492 y se trasladaron a varias partes del mundo, particularmente al Imperio Otomano, integrando elementos de las lenguas que encontraron a su propia 4 lengua ibérica. Un gran porcentaje de la generación más vieja de los sefardíes de Seattle creció, si no hablando, por lo menos escuchando el ladino en casa; eran hijos de inmigrantes recientes, pero no hablaban la lengua con sus propios hijos. -
Native American Languages, Indigenous Languages of the Native Peoples of North, Middle, and South America
Native American Languages, indigenous languages of the native peoples of North, Middle, and South America. The precise number of languages originally spoken cannot be known, since many disappeared before they were documented. In North America, around 300 distinct, mutually unintelligible languages were spoken when Europeans arrived. Of those, 187 survive today, but few will continue far into the 21st century, since children are no longer learning the vast majority of these. In Middle America (Mexico and Central America) about 300 languages have been identified, of which about 140 are still spoken. South American languages have been the least studied. Around 1500 languages are known to have been spoken, but only about 350 are still in use. These, too are disappearing rapidly. Classification A major task facing scholars of Native American languages is their classification into language families. (A language family consists of all languages that have evolved from a single ancestral language, as English, German, French, Russian, Greek, Armenian, Hindi, and others have all evolved from Proto-Indo-European.) Because of the vast number of languages spoken in the Americas, and the gaps in our information about many of them, the task of classifying these languages is a challenging one. In 1891, Major John Wesley Powell proposed that the languages of North America constituted 58 independent families, mainly on the basis of superficial vocabulary resemblances. At the same time Daniel Brinton posited 80 families for South America. These two schemes form the basis of subsequent classifications. In 1929 Edward Sapir tentatively proposed grouping these families into superstocks, 6 in North America and 15 in Middle America. -
On Endangered Languages and the Safeguarding of Diversity
(QGDQJHUHGODQJXDJHV2QHQGDQJHUHGODQJXDJHVDQGWKHVDIHJXDUGLQJ RIGLYHUVLW\ .HQ+DOH /DQJXDJH9ROXPH1XPEHU0DUFKSS $UWLFOH 3XEOLVKHGE\/LQJXLVWLF6RFLHW\RI$PHULFD '2,ODQ )RUDGGLWLRQDOLQIRUPDWLRQDERXWWKLVDUWLFOH KWWSVPXVHMKXHGXDUWLFOH Access provided by National University of Singapore (14 Aug 2016 08:04 GMT) ENDANGERED LANGUAGESt On endangered languages and the safeguarding of diversity* Ken Hale Massachusetts Institute of Technology Like most people who have done linguistic field work for thirty years or so, I have worked on languages which are now extinct, eight of them in my case, and I have studied, and continue to study, many languages which are seriously imperiled. My experience is far from unusual, and the testimony of field work- ers alone would amply illustrate the extent of language loss in the world of the present era. It is reasonable, I suppose, to ask what difference it makes. On the one hand, one might say, language loss has been a reality throughout history; and on the other, the loss of a language is of no great moment either for science or for human intellectual life. I think, personally, that these ideas are wrong and that language loss is a serious matter. Or, more accurately, it is part of a process which is itself very serious. From what I have been able to learn, based on the model of early-modern and contemporary hunting and gathering and mobile agricultural peoples, the process of language loss throughout most of human history, i.e. the period prior to the development of large states and empires, has been attended by a period of grammatical merger in situations of multilingualism, in geographically con- fined areas, and among quite small communities—as, for example, in parts of Arnhem Land and Cape York Peninsula, Australia, and in the bilingual Sumu and Miskitu communities of Central America. -
Inuktut Uqausiit (Inuit Languages) in Canada – History and Contemporary Developments by Nadine C
Inuktut Uqausiit (Inuit Languages) in Canada – History and Contemporary Developments by Nadine C. Fabbi, Canadian Studies Center, Henry M. Jackson School of International Studies, University of Washington, Seattle. The author would like to thank Heather Campbell, Language and Culture Coordinator, Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami; Toni White and Catharyn Andersen from the Torngâsok Cultural Centre, Nunatsiavut; and Jay Arnakak, Qikiqtani Inuit Association, Nunavut for their expert advice. Written for the Arctic Indigenous Languages Symposium, Sustainable Development Working Group, Arctic Council, coordinated by the Inuit Circumpolar Council (Canada), and hosted by the Saami Council, Norway, October 2008, www.arcticlanguages.com. Language not only communicates, it defines culture, nature, history, humanity and ancestry. Preserving endangered languages is a vital part of securing the culture and heritage of our rich human landscape. Language keeps traditions alive, it inspires knowledge and respect about our past and the planet on which we live, and it links communities across borders and beyond time. Quoted from the United Nations web site “The UN Works for Cultural Diversity: Endangered Languages” The scientific community has warned that such historical assimilation campaigns—combined with declining Indigenous populations, increased mobility, economic pressures, as well as exposure to television and other communications technologies—could lead to the loss of half of the world’s 6,000 to 7,000 languages by 2050. With such a decline, they warn, will come the demise of local knowledge, mentalities, creativity and heritage, as well as specialized information such as unique survival skills and traditional medicines. from Canada World View, Fall 2004 Language is a cultural mosaic of communication. -
A Treatise on the Assault on Language Sovereignty in the United States: History, Education, and Implications for Policy
University of Montana ScholarWorks at University of Montana Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers Graduate School 2014 A Treatise on the Assault on Language Sovereignty in the United States: History, Education, and Implications for Policy Annie Thornburg Oakes The University of Montana Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.umt.edu/etd Let us know how access to this document benefits ou.y Recommended Citation Oakes, Annie Thornburg, "A Treatise on the Assault on Language Sovereignty in the United States: History, Education, and Implications for Policy" (2014). Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers. 4407. https://scholarworks.umt.edu/etd/4407 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at ScholarWorks at University of Montana. It has been accepted for inclusion in Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers by an authorized administrator of ScholarWorks at University of Montana. For more information, please contact [email protected]. A TREATISE ON THE ASSAULT ON LANGUAGE SOVEREIGNTY IN THE UNITED STATES: HISTORY, EDUCATION, AND IMPLICATIONS FOR POLICY By ANNIE THORNBURG OAKES Bachelor‟s Degrees, University of Utah, 1973, and Eastern Washington University, 2006 Master‟s Degree, Eastern Washington University, 1996 DISSERTATION presented in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Anthropology, Cultural Heritage Studies The University of Montana Missoula, MT May 2014 Approved by: Sandy Ross, Dean of the Graduate School Graduate School S. Neyooxet Greymorning, Chair Anthropology Gregory Campbell Anthropology Richmond Clow Native American Studies Leora Bar-El Anthropology Irene Appelbaum Anthropology University of Montana Dissertation 2 COPYRIGHT by Annie T. -
[.35 **Natural Language Processing Class Here Computational Linguistics See Manual at 006.35 Vs
006 006 006 DeweyiDecimaliClassification006 006 [.35 **Natural language processing Class here computational linguistics See Manual at 006.35 vs. 410.285 *Use notation 019 from Table 1 as modified at 004.019 400 DeweyiDecimaliClassification 400 400 DeweyiDecimali400Classification Language 400 [400 [400 *‡Language Class here interdisciplinary works on language and literature For literature, see 800; for rhetoric, see 808. For the language of a specific discipline or subject, see the discipline or subject, plus notation 014 from Table 1, e.g., language of science 501.4 (Option A: To give local emphasis or a shorter number to a specific language, class in 410, where full instructions appear (Option B: To give local emphasis or a shorter number to a specific language, place before 420 through use of a letter or other symbol. Full instructions appear under 420–490) 400 DeweyiDecimali400Classification Language 400 SUMMARY [401–409 Standard subdivisions and bilingualism [410 Linguistics [420 English and Old English (Anglo-Saxon) [430 German and related languages [440 French and related Romance languages [450 Italian, Dalmatian, Romanian, Rhaetian, Sardinian, Corsican [460 Spanish, Portuguese, Galician [470 Latin and related Italic languages [480 Classical Greek and related Hellenic languages [490 Other languages 401 DeweyiDecimali401Classification Language 401 [401 *‡Philosophy and theory See Manual at 401 vs. 121.68, 149.94, 410.1 401 DeweyiDecimali401Classification Language 401 [.3 *‡International languages Class here universal languages; general