Things people speak?: a response to Orman’s ‘Linguistic diversity and language loss: a view from integrational linguistics’ with rejoinder

2014 ◽  
Vol 41 ◽  
pp. 222-226 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joshua Nash ◽  
Jon Orman
Keyword(s):  
Linguistic Diversity ◽  
Language Loss

scholarly journals The tension of unity and conflict in multilingualism

2020 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 7-10
Author(s):  
Ushuple Lucy Mishina
Keyword(s):  
Linguistic Diversity ◽  
Research Paper ◽  
Modern World ◽  
Language Loss ◽  
Common Phenomenon ◽  
Broad Definition

In our modern world, multilingualism is a common phenomenon. By broad definition, the term ‘multilingualism’ is the use of two or more languages, either by a person or by a group of speakers. Though there have appeared debates and countless studies along with the dominance of multilingualism in any given society. It is often agreed upon by many scholars that multilingualism can be both a problem and a resource. This research paper aims at illuminating the tension of unity and conflict in multilingualism and linguistic diversity. In doing so, this research focuses on multilingualism in Africa and possible implication for unity and conflict within the continent. This paper discovers that multilingualism can cause a crisis of identity, language loss, the death of a language. It can lead to violence and ethnic clashes. In some cases, it can help foster unity in a country.

What Are We Trying to Preserve? Diversity, Change, and Ideology at the Edge of the Cameroonian Grassfields

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pierpaolo Di Carlo ◽  
Jeff Good
Keyword(s):  
Language Ideologies ◽  
Linguistic Diversity ◽  
Extreme Case ◽  
Language Loss ◽  
Research Projects ◽  
Language Endangerment ◽  
Local Language ◽  
Key Aspects

Losses associated with language endangerment need not be restricted to individual language systems but can also involve the disappearance of distinctive language ecologies. This chapter explores the language dynamics of the Lower Fungom region of Northwest Cameroon, which offers an extreme case of linguistic diversity, from an areal and ethnographically informed perspective. Key aspects of local language ideologies are explored in detail, and it is argued that in this area languages symbolize relatively ephemeral political formations and, hence, should not be taken as reflections of deeply rooted historical identities. This conclusion has significance both regarding how research projects in the area should be structured as well as for what it might mean to ‘preserve’ the languages of a region that historically appears to have been characterized by frequent language loss and emergence, conditioned by changes in territorial and political configurations.

The Imperial Legacy of Language

2008 ◽  
Author(s):  
Harm De Blij
Keyword(s):  
Linguistic Diversity ◽  
Historical Geography ◽  
Mother Tongue ◽  
Language Loss ◽  
Social Environments ◽  
Cultural Convergence ◽  
The Earth ◽  
The World ◽  
Great Merit ◽  
Early Human

Language is the essence of culture, and culture is the epoxy of society. Individually and collectively, people tend to feel passionately about their mother tongue, especially when they have reason to believe that it is threatened in some way. Ever since the use of language evolved in early human communities, some confined in isolated abodes and others on the march into Eurasia, Australia, and the Americas, languages have arisen, flourished, and failed with the fortunes of their speakers. Linguists estimate that tens of thousands of such languages may have been born and lost, leaving no trace. Some major ones, including Sumerian and Etruscan, survive fragmentarily in their written record. A few, such as Sanskrit and Latin, live on in their modern successors. But the historical geography of language is the story of a loss of linguistic diversity that continues unabated. At present, about 7,000 languages remain, half of them classified by linguists as endangered. In the year from the day you read this, about 25 more languages will go extinct. By the end of this century, the Earth may be left with just a few hundred languages, so billions of its inhabitants will no longer be speaking their ancestral mother tongues (Diamond, 2001). If this projection turns out to be accurate, the language loss will not be confined to those spoken by comparatively few people in remote locales. One dimension of the “flattening” of the world in the age of globalization is the cultural convergence of which linguistic homogenization is a key component. Some of my colleagues view this as an inevitable and not altogether undesirable process of integration, but if I may be candid, most of those colleagues speak one language only: English. Having spoken six languages during my lifetime (I can still manage in four), I tend to share the linguists’ concern over the trend. English has the great merit of comparative simplicity and adaptable modernity, but as it reflects historic natural and social environments it is sparse indeed and no match for the riches of French or even Dutch. If such contrasts can arise and persist among closely related languages in Europe, imagine the legacies of major languages such as Yoruba, Urdu, Thai, and others potentially endangered as language convergence proceeds.

scholarly journals Introduction: the transformation of Tibet’s language ecology in the twenty-first century

2017 ◽  
Vol 2017 (245) ◽  
pp. 1-35 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gerald Roche
Keyword(s):  
Linguistic Diversity ◽  
Second Century ◽  
First Century ◽  
Minority Languages ◽  
Language Loss ◽  
Focus Attention ◽  
The West ◽  
Language Ecology ◽  
Twenty First Century

AbstractTibet’s linguistic diversity is undergoing drastic transformations in the twenty-first century. In this article, I begin my examination of this issue by outlining the extent of Tibet’s linguistic diversity, including not only its numerous Tibetic languages, but also its non-Tibetic minority languages. Using a “language ecology” approach, I examine the mechanisms that have produced and maintained this diversity, as well as the ways this diversity was spatially and socially patterned. I argue that these processes and patterns were largely maintained up until the twenty-first century, when the Chinese state’s program to “Open the West” unleashed an ideologically driven modernization program on Tibet, radically altering its language ecology. I argue that the present trends emerging from this process are likely to continue throughout the twenty-first century, resulting in both language loss and the emergence of new languages, leaving the overall language ecology fundamentally altered by the beginning of the twenty-second century. It is hoped that this article will not only provide a useful framework for future discussions on linguistic diversity in Tibet, but will also focus attention on the challenges facing individual languages in Tibet today.

scholarly journals Khevsur and Tush and the Status of Unusual Phenomena in Corpora

2011 ◽  
Vol 37 (2) ◽  
pp. 96
Author(s):  
Thomas R. Wier
Keyword(s):  
Linguistic Diversity ◽  
Social Classes ◽  
Language Loss ◽  
Language Varieties ◽  
Language Variety ◽  
The Status ◽  
High Prestige

\Recent years have seen an increasing realization of the threat posed by language loss where, according to some estimates, upwards of ninety percent of all languages may go extinct within the next century (Nettle and Romaine 2002). What is less often realized, much less discussed, is the extent to which linguistic diversity that falls within the threshold of mutual intelligibility is also diminishing. This is especially true of regions where one particular language variety is both widely spoken and holds especially high prestige across many different social classes and communities. In this paper, we will examine two such OdialectsP of Georgian: Khevsur and Tush, and investigate what corpora-based dialectology can tell us about phylogenetic and typological rarities found in such language varieties.

scholarly journals Translating German philosophy into English: The case of Martin Heidegger

2021 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 31
Author(s):  
Martin Arndt
Keyword(s):  
English Language ◽  
Linguistic Diversity ◽  
Language Loss ◽  
Pop Music ◽  
Language Death ◽  
Language Endangerment ◽  
Library Research ◽  
German Philosopher ◽  
Inherent Problem ◽  
New Perspective

Language endangerment and language loss have become of focal interest for linguists and cultural anthropologists who bemoan the loss of linguistic diversity. The coinage of the term “linguicide” indicates the inherent problem that is related to mondialisation, universalization, and urbanization, which in itself is a highly controversial subject. The recent discoveries of Martin Heidegger’s black notebooks cast a new perspective on his work, revealing his revulsion at universalist ideologies and his antimodernism – and, most fatefully, his antisemitism: Jews who are to him the incarnation of rootlessness, distance from the soil, and thus subversion. Heidegger was born in a rural provincial German – and for many remained so, walking in the countryside, hating TV, airplanes, pop music, and processed food that all conspire to distract us from the basic wondrous nature of Being, overwhelming us with information, killing silence, and never leaving us alone, and thus keep us away from the confrontation with “das Nichts” (the Nothing), which lies on the other side of Being, that is, however, unknown to the chatter (das Gerede), which can be perceived in the newspapers, on TV and in the cities Heidegger hated to spend time in. Although he was a Nazi to the end, this does not mean that nothing can be learned from him or problems connected to his work. This library research deals with the complexity of translating this German philosopher into the English language. It draws not only on typical examples from Heidegger’s path-breaking philosophical work Sein und Zeit and presents attempts at translating it, but also points out their shortcomings and drawbacks. Additionally, it presents solutions to the problems that emerge from Heidegger’s idiosyncratic language. Generally speaking, it reveals the almost unbridgeable language barriers that can only be overcome at the expense of depth and authenticity. Homogenization can be seen as a way of leveling down ideas and concepts that end in language death.

Language Endangerment in Africa

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tucker Childs
Keyword(s):  
Linguistic Diversity ◽  
Climatic Factors ◽  
Government Policies ◽  
Language Loss ◽  
Language Diversity ◽  
Language Endangerment ◽  
African Languages ◽  
World Languages ◽  
European Languages ◽  
Concomitant Reduction

As elsewhere in the world, languages in Africa are endangered. The estimates for language loss on a world scale likely hold for Africa as well. Although the particular group of factors at work in Africa may be unique, they come from a well-established inventory familiar elsewhere. The forces reducing African language diversity come from the combination of a set of macro socioeconomic factors and historical events, such as colonization and globalization, coupled with local factors such as military conquest and misguided government policies. Simple demographic factors, such as number of speakers, are also important: the less widely spoken languages are more severely threatened than are those spoken more widely. The shift from African languages is to both European languages and the more widely spoken languages on the continent. Shifts also occur to localized or appropriated versions of the two. Climatic factors, most notably global warming, have played and will continue to play a role as well; the correlation between biological and linguistic diversity has often been remarked. For example, with the growth of plantation economies and the destruction of rain forests, there is a concomitant reduction in linguistic diversity.

Introduction

2014 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
General Public ◽  
Linguistic Diversity ◽  
Endangered Languages ◽  
Language Loss ◽  
Negative Attitudes ◽  
Speech Communities ◽  
Late Twentieth ◽  
Late Twentieth Century

This introductory chapter gives some background on the loss of linguistic diversity worldwide and the increased interest in this field since the late twentieth century: in academia, among the (Western) general public and in communities affected by language loss. A major factor in language shift is negative attitudes, which often become ‘naturalized’ through hegemonic ideologies of linguistic inferiority and inculcated beliefs regarding the value or utility of particular ways of speaking. The chapter discusses the nature of beliefs and ideologies as they relate to endangered languages, and some terminology relevant to the book, especially ‘speech communities’. The Introduction also provides an overview of the chapters in the book, highlighting recurring and emergent themes and key contributions that the collection makes to the field.

scholarly journals Language Revitalization

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aidan Pine ◽  
Mark Turin
Keyword(s):  
Linguistic Diversity ◽  
Political Identity ◽  
Language Revitalization ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Cultural Knowledge ◽  
Minority Languages ◽  
Language Loss ◽  
Linguistic Landscape ◽  
Geographical Regions ◽  
Wide Range

The world is home to an extraordinary level of linguistic diversity, with roughly 7,000 languages currently spoken and signed. Yet this diversity is highly unstable and is being rapidly eroded through a series of complex and interrelated processes that result in or lead to language loss. The combination of monolingualism and networks of global trade languages that are increasingly technologized have led to over half of the world’s population speaking one of only 13 languages. Such linguistic homogenization leaves in its wake a linguistic landscape that is increasingly endangered. A wide range of factors contribute to language loss and attrition. While some—such as natural disasters—are unique to particular language communities and specific geographical regions, many have similar origins and are common across endangered language communities around the globe. The harmful legacy of colonization and the enduring impact of disenfranchising policies relating to Indigenous and minority languages are at the heart of language attrition from New Zealand to Hawai’i, and from Canada to Nepal. Language loss does not occur in isolation, nor is it inevitable or in any way “natural.” The process also has wide-ranging social and economic repercussions for the language communities in question. Language is so heavily intertwined with cultural knowledge and political identity that speech forms often serve as meaningful indicators of a community’s vitality and social well-being. More than ever before, there are vigorous and collaborative efforts underway to reverse the trend of language loss and to reclaim and revitalize endangered languages. Such approaches vary significantly, from making use of digital technologies in order to engage individual and younger learners to community-oriented language nests and immersion programs. Drawing on diverse techniques and communities, the question of measuring the success of language revitalization programs has driven research forward in the areas of statistical assessments of linguistic diversity, endangerment, and vulnerability. Current efforts are re-evaluating the established triad of documentation-conservation-revitalization in favor of more unified, holistic, and community-led approaches.

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