Endangered Languages

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chris Rogers ◽  
Lyle Campbell
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Practices ◽  
Linguistic Diversity ◽  
Social Value ◽  
Endangered Languages ◽  
Individual Identity ◽  
Language Endangerment ◽  
Economic Issues ◽  
Know How ◽  
Endangered Language ◽  
Real People

The reduction of the world’s linguistic diversity has accelerated over the last century and correlates to a loss of knowledge, collective and individual identity, and social value. Often a language is pushed out of use before scholars and language communities have a chance to document or preserve this linguistic heritage. Many are concerned for this loss, believing it to be one of the most serious issues facing humanity today. To address the issues concomitant with an endangered language, we must know how to define “endangerment,” how different situations of endangerment can be compared, and how each language fits into the cultural practices of individuals. The discussion about endangered languages focuses on addressing the needs, causes, and consequences of this loss. Concern over endangered languages is not just an academic catch phrase. It involves real people and communities struggling with real social, political, and economic issues. To understand the causes and consequence of language endangerment for these individuals and communities requires a multifaceted perspective on the place of each language in the lives of their users. The loss of a language affects not only the world’s linguistic diversity but also an individual’s social identity, and a community’s sense of itself and its history.

Language Documentation in Diaspora Communities

2018 ◽  
pp. 398-418
Author(s):  
Daniel Kaufman ◽  
Ross Perlin
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
New York City ◽  
Social Factors ◽  
Urban Setting ◽  
Ex Situ ◽  
Endangered Languages ◽  
Language Documentation ◽  
Non Profit ◽  
Language Endangerment ◽  
Endangered Language

Due to environmental, economic, and social factors, cities are increasingly absorbing speakers of endangered languages. In this chapter, the authors examine some of the ways that organizations can work with communities in an urban setting to further language documentation, conservation, and revitalization. They base their discussion on their experience at the Endangered Language Alliance, a non-profit organization based in New York City that facilitates collaboration between linguists, students, speakers of endangered languages, and other relevant parties. While ex-situ language documentation has not been given much attention in the literature, they argue that it has its own unique advantages and that diaspora communities need to be taken seriously, both to fully understand language endangerment and to better counteract it.

Introduction

2018 ◽  
pp. xxviii-18
Author(s):  
Lyle Campbell ◽  
Kenneth L. Rehg
Keyword(s):  
Language Revitalization ◽  
Endangered Languages ◽  
Language Documentation ◽  
Language Endangerment ◽  
Reference Volume ◽  
Endangered Language ◽  
New Findings ◽  
Comprehensive Reference

The Oxford Handbook of Endangered Languages’ purposes are (1) to provide a reasonably comprehensive reference volume for endangered languages, with the scope of the volume as a whole representing the breadth of the field; (2) to highlight both the range of thinking about language endangerment and the variety of responses to it; and (3) to broaden understanding of language endangerment, language documentation, and language revitalization, and, in so doing, to encourage and contribute to fresh thinking and new findings in support of endangered languages. This chapter introduces the thirty-nine chapters of this Handbook, which are addressed to the themes and approaches in scholarship on endangered language and to these objectives of the book. The authors introduce the criteria for determining whether a language is endangered and just how endangered it is, address the causes of language endangerment, review the reasons for why the language endangerment crisis matters, and discuss the variety of responses to it.

“Will the Real Semi-Speaker Please Stand Up?” Language Vitality, Semi-Speakers, and Problems of Enumeration in the Canadian North

1969 ◽  
Vol 59 (1) ◽  
pp. 12-27 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daria Boltokova
Keyword(s):  
Endangered Languages ◽  
Language Endangerment ◽  
Standard Methods ◽  
The Real ◽  
Ethnographic Fieldwork ◽  
Canadian North ◽  
Endangered Language ◽  
Linguistic Practices ◽  
Language Revitalisation

This article reassesses categories used in language revitalisation efforts and critiques some enumeration practices that language activists use to measure language endangerment and vitality. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork in the Dene Tha settlement of Chateh in northwestern Alberta, Canada, I argue that the practices of speaker enumeration are often premised on idealised notions of who counts as an endangered language speaker. Standard methods for counting endangered language speakers fail to capture the heterogeneous linguistic practices of partially fluent “semi-speakers,” who often constitute the majority of young speakers in endangered language communities. To correct this oversight, I propose shifting the discourse of language endangerment toward one of language vitality, enabling semi-speakers to be recognised and counted as rightful, valid speakers of endangered languages.

scholarly journals A Program for the Preservation and Revitalization of the Languages of Russia

2021 ◽  
Vol 25 (2) ◽  
pp. 507-527
Author(s):  
Andrej A. Kibrik
Keyword(s):  
Linguistic Diversity ◽  
Necessary Conditions ◽  
National Language ◽  
Endangered Languages ◽  
Language Documentation ◽  
Scientific Validity ◽  
Language Preservation ◽  
Language Endangerment ◽  
Three Stages ◽  
Academy Of Sciences

This article presents the Program for the Preservation and Revitalization of the Languages of Russia proposed by the Institute of Linguistics, Russian Academy of Sciences (the Program). The Program is based on knowledge accumulated in linguistics in domains such as linguistic diversity, language endangerment, and language preservation methods. According to a recent assessment, there are 150 to 160 languages of Russia. This number of languages, even though quite high, is manageable for a national language preservation Program. Languages are rapidly becoming extinct worldwide, and Russia is no exception to this trend. The following terms are used to categorize languages according to risk of extinction: safe languages, endangered languages, severely endangered languages, and nearly extinct languages. There are several important humanitarian and scientific reasons for engaging in language preservation. The central idea of the Program is to boost intergenerational language transmission wherever feasible. Various approaches to different language situations are envisaged, including enlightenment campaigns, language nests, and language documentation. Three necessary conditions for language revitalization include engaging local activists, administrative and financial support, and the scientific validity of the methodology. The Programs 12-year roadmap is split into three stages. There are a number of favorable factors making the Program feasible, as well as a number of potential obstacles. We have a historic opportunity to preserve languages spoken in Russia, and this is an opportunity that must be used.

Endangered Languages

2014 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Language Ideologies ◽  
Linguistic Diversity ◽  
Endangered Languages ◽  
Minority Languages ◽  
Language Documentation ◽  
National Unity ◽  
Language Endangerment ◽  
Community Based Research ◽  
Language Varieties ◽  
National Languages

Over the few past centuries, and the last 65 years in particular, there has been a remarkable reduction in global linguistic diversity, as people abandon minority language varieties and switch to larger, and what they perceive to be more economically, socially and politically powerful, regional or national languages. In addition, governments have been promoting standardised official languages for use in schooling, media, and bureaucracy, often under a rubric of linguistic unity supporting national unity. The last two decades have seen a significant increase in interest in minority languages and language shift, endangerment, and loss, in academia and among language speakers and the wider public. There has also been growing interest from anthropological linguists and sociolinguists in the study of language ideologies and beliefs about languages. This volume brings together chapters on theoretical and practical issues in these two areas, especially the views of linguists and communities about support for and revitalization of endangered languages. The chapters thus go straight to the heart of ideological bases of reactions to language endangerment among those most closely involved, drawing their discussions from case studies of how language ideologies and beliefs affect language practices (and vice versa). Most of the authors conduct collaborative community-based research and take a reflective engagement stance to investigate (potential) clashes in ideological perspectives. This is one of the key theoretical and practical issues in research on endangered languages, and so has important implications for language documentation, support and revitalization, as well as language policy at local, national and international levels.

scholarly journals Review Article

2017 ◽  
Vol 46 (2) ◽  
pp. 257-269 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anne Kruijt ◽  
Mark Turin
Keyword(s):  
Steady Increase ◽  
Endangered Languages ◽  
Language Documentation ◽  
Language Endangerment ◽  
Endangered Language ◽  
Philanthropic Organizations ◽  
The Us ◽  
Us Government ◽  
Seminal Article ◽  
Research Councils

In response to a crescendo of public and scholarly interest, over the last two decades there has been a noticeable and mostly welcome surge in publications that focus on language documentation, conservation, and revitalization. Early and high impact contributions in Hale et al. (1992) included a now seminal article by Michael Krauss which called for urgent action to prevent linguistics from going down in history as the ‘only science that presided obliviously over the disappearance of 90% of the very field to which it is dedicated’ (Krauss 1992:10). There then followed a discussion on the topic by Ladefoged (1992) and a prompt reply by Dorian (1993) that situated the issue of language endangerment as one deserving of sustained academic attention. Alongside swelling bookshelves that speak to the urgency of this work, major research programs funded by private philanthropic organizations and research councils were also being established at this time. The Foundation for Endangered Languages (FEL) was founded in 1995, followed a year later by the Endangered Language Fund (ELF). With the establishment of the Dokumentation Bedrohter Sprachen program (DoBeS) in 2000, the Hans Rausing Endangered Languages Project (HRELP) in 2002, and the Documenting Endangered Languages (DEL) program funded by the US government in 2005, the last two decades bear witness to a steady increase in support, funding, and visibility for the documentation and preservation of endangered languages.

A response to ‘Assessing levels of endangerment in the Catalogue of Endangered Languages (ELCat) using the Language Endangerment Index (LEI)’, by Nala Huiying Lee & John Van Way

2016 ◽  
Vol 45 (2) ◽  
pp. 293-300 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lenore A. Grenoble
Keyword(s):  
Linguistic Diversity ◽  
Endangered Languages ◽  
Ongoing Debate ◽  
Underlying Assumption ◽  
Language Endangerment ◽  
Perceived Need ◽  
Preferable Alternative

The Catalogue of Endangered Languages (ELCat) is one of several similar responses to a perceived need for better data on language vitality. My remarks here are framed as a direct reply to Lee & Van Way's article, but really address larger issues in the ongoing debate about a perceived need to classify, inventory, and enumerate endangered languages. Lee & Van Way focus on one aspect of ELCat, the Language Endangerment Index (LEI), discussing a number of shortcomings in other current models. As an instrument for determining the level of language endangerment, the LEI is presented as a preferable alternative to other metrics, including Fishman's (1991) Graded Intergenerational Disruption Scale (GIDS), or EGIDS, the Expanded scale, based on the work of Lewis & Simons (2010), or UNESCO's (2003) expert scale. Lee & Van Way's discussion presupposes that such metrics are needed, and that it is beneficial to have a method for measuring vitality. Specifically, they argue that ‘for those concerned with preserving the world's fragile linguistic diversity, it is desirable to be able to quantify language vitality’. This is the underlying assumption of not only ELCat and LEI, but of other language catalogues, such as the Ethnologue (Lewis, Simons, & Fennig 2015), UNESCO's Atlas (Moseley 2010), and other vitality metrics, as discussed in Lee & Van Way.

Language Contact and Endangered Languages

2020 ◽  
pp. 240-260
Author(s):  
Alexandra Y. Aikhenvald
Keyword(s):  
Language Contact ◽  
Language Change ◽  
Language Shift ◽  
Endangered Languages ◽  
Language Loss ◽  
Language Endangerment ◽  
Dominant Language ◽  
Endangered Language ◽  
High Degree ◽  
The Impact

A major reason for language endangerment is intensive contact with another group whose language has gained, or is gaining, greater political, social and economic prestige and advantages. Speakers of an endangered language will gradually lose the capacity to fully communicate in the language, and fully understand it. As a consequence, an endangered language will gradually become obsolescent. The process of language obsolescence ultimately leads to language shift and language loss. The impact of the increasingly dominant language onto an endangered language tends to involve a massive influx of non-native forms from the dominant language; a high amount of structural diffusion; reinforcement of forms and patterns shared with the dominant language; and the loss of forms or patterns absent from the dominant language. Language endangerment and impending language shift may result in dialect leveling, and creating new mixed, or ‘blended’ languages. A major difference between contact-induced language change in ‘healthy’ and in endangered languages lies in the speed of change. A high degree of individual variation between speakers and disintegration of language communities result in the lack of continuity and stability of linguistic change.

The Oxford Handbook of Endangered Languages

2018 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Language Revitalization ◽  
Biocultural Diversity ◽  
Endangered Languages ◽  
Language Documentation ◽  
Comprehensive Overview ◽  
Diverse Range ◽  
Language Endangerment ◽  
Reference Volume ◽  
New Findings ◽  
Comprehensive Reference

The Oxford Handbook of Endangered Languages, in thirty-nine chapters, provides a comprehensive overview of the efforts that are being undertaken to deal with this crisis. Its purposes are (1) to provide a reasonably comprehensive reference volume, with the scope of the volume as a whole representing the breadth of the field; (2) to highlight both the range of thinking about language endangerment and the variety of responses to it; and (3) to broaden understanding of language endangerment, language documentation, and language revitalization, and, in so doing, to encourage and contribute to fresh thinking and new findings in support of endangered languages. The handbook is organized into five parts. Part I, Endangered Languages, addresses some of the fundamental issues that are essential to understanding the nature of the endangered languages crisis. Part II, Language Documentation provides an overview of the issues and activities of concern to linguists and others in their efforts to record and document endangered languages. Part III, Language Revitalization encompasses a diverse range of topics, including approaches, practices, and strategies for revitalizing endangered and sleeping (“dormant”) languages. Part IV, Endangered Languages and Biocultural Diversity, extends the discussion of language endangerment beyond its conventional boundaries to consider the interrelationship of language, culture, and environment. Part V, Looking to the Future, addresses a variety of topics that are certain to be of consequence in future efforts to document and revitalize endangered languages.

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