Language Endangerment David Bradley and Maya Bradley (2019)

2021 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 157-159
Author(s):  
Nana Ama Agyeman

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.


1999 ◽  
Vol 21 (2) ◽  
pp. 39-43 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bartholomew Dean

An Urarina elder made this statement at a community assembly meeting in July 1996, which adults from the primary long house community on the Pangayacu River had called to discuss the educational future of their children. The unrelenting economic, cultural, and political pressures accompanying Peruvian national expansion into Amazonia have led indigenous peoples like the Urarina to question their prospects for future linguistic and cultural survival. Over the past decade I have worked with the Urarina, both as a social anthropologist and as an advocate working on behalf of the Amazonian Peoples' Resources Initiative (APRI). In 1995 APRI launched an integrated community defense program among the Urarina. In collaboration with a local NGO (Programa de Formación de Maestros Bilingües de la Amazonía Peruana), APRI has begun developing an educational program that promotes the political and economic empowerment of the Urarina peoples. It works to secure Urarina access to primary health care, culturally appropriate education in the face of perceived language endangerment, and sustainable natural resource management.


2020 ◽  
Vol 5 (35) ◽  
pp. 107-124
Author(s):  
Md. Roslan Suhailin ◽  
Arba’ie Sujud

This study aimed to determine the use of language in the family domain and the intergenerational language transmission among Bisaya ethnic students by gender. Researchers selected 205 participants in form 4, 5, and 6 from 3 secondary schools in Beaufort, Sabah, of which 115 girls and 90 boys. A field survey was conducted using two types of questionnaires adapted from Drummond (2010) and Fishman (1991). Survey data made use of percentage, mean, graded scale, and chi-square statistics. It was found that the choice of language in the family domain from both groups of students was 25% Bisaya language, Malay 75%. The mean 20.01 for language choice in the family domain by the girl group was higher than those of the boy group, 19.98. The level of intergenerational language transmission between parents and children selected by both groups of students was Grade 3, Endangered. About 51.06% from the boy group and 60.9% from the girl group had selected this scale. Grade 3, Endangered is interpreted as the Bisaya language is used by most generations of parents and above. Parents can still speak the language to their children, but their children usually do not respond to Bisaya. The researchers accepted the null hypothesis that there was no significant difference in intergenerational language transmission based on gender. The intergenerational language transmission factor is a major cause of language endangerment. This factor was founded by Fishman (1991) which has been recognized as the gold standard of language vitality by the UNESCO language expert group.


Author(s):  
Anna Belew ◽  
Sean Simpson

This chapter provides an overview of the status of the world’s endangered languages, based primarily on data from the Catalogue of Endangered Languages. Difficulties in identifying and enumerating endangered languages and obstacles to assessing linguistic vitality on a large scale are discussed. Statistical overviews are provided of language endangerment by global region, comparing trends in language endangerment across the world. The availability (or widespread absence) of the kinds of data necessary to assess language endangerment is examined, and we encourage linguists to include these types of data in their field reports and other published work. Finally, widely circulated statistics of language endangerment and death are considered.


Author(s):  
Pierpaolo Di Carlo ◽  
Jeff Good

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.


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