When Languages Die


Book Description

It is commonly agreed by linguists and anthropologists that the majority of languages spoken now around the globe will likely disappear within our lifetime. This text focuses on the question: what is lost when a language dies?




The Cambridge Handbook of Endangered Languages


Book Description

It is generally agreed that about 7,000 languages are spoken across the world today and at least half may no longer be spoken by the end of this century. This state-of-the-art Handbook examines the reasons behind this dramatic loss of linguistic diversity, why it matters, and what can be done to document and support endangered languages. The volume is relevant not only to researchers in language endangerment, language shift and language death, but to anyone interested in the languages and cultures of the world. It is accessible both to specialists and non-specialists: researchers will find cutting-edge contributions from acknowledged experts in their fields, while students, activists and other interested readers will find a wealth of readable yet thorough and up-to-date information.




Foundations of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism


Book Description

The sixth edition of this bestselling textbook has been substantially revised and updated to provide a comprehensive introduction to bilingualism and bilingual education in the 21st century. Written in a compact and clear style, the book covers all the crucial issues in bilingualism at individual, group and societal levels. Updates to the new edition include: • Greater attention to technological advances and global trends impacting and impacted by bilingualism. • New trends and issues in bilingual education, including recent research on the effectiveness of different types of bilingual education. • Issues in the assessment of bilinguals. • The latest thinking on identity and bilingualism. • Recent developments in brain imaging research. • Discussion of the latest terms in bilingualism research including dynamic bilingualism, translanguaging, transliteracy and superdiversity, in addition to an enhanced look at multilingualism. Students and instructors will benefit from new features including: • A comprehensive glossary. • A condensed and updated bibliography. • Updated international examples of policy, research and practice. • The addition of web resources and discussion questions. • Fully revised study activities and recommended reading.




Learner corpus profiles


Book Description

Aiming at exemplifying the methodology of learner corpus profiling, this book describes salient features of Romanian Learner English. As a starting point, the volume offers a comprehensive presentation of the Romanian-English contrastive studies. Another innovative aspect of the book refers to the use of the first Romanian Corpus of Learner English, whose compilation is the object of a methodological discussion. In one of the main chapters, the book introduces the methodology of learner corpus profiling and compares it with existing approaches. The profiling approach is emphasised by corpus-based quantitative and qualitative investigations of Romanian Learner English. Part of the investigation is dedicated to the lexico-grammatical profiles of articles, prepositions and genitives. The frequency-based collocation analyses are integrated with error analyses and extended into error pattern samples. Furthermore, contrasting typical Romanian Learner English constructions with examples from the German and the Italian learner corpora opens the path to new contrastive interlanguage analyses.




Revitalizing Endangered Languages


Book Description

Of the approximately 7,000 languages in the world, at least half may no longer be spoken by the end of the twenty-first century. Languages are endangered by a number of factors, including globalization, education policies, and the political, economic and cultural marginalization of minority groups. This guidebook provides ideas and strategies, as well as some background, to help with the effective revitalization of endangered languages. It covers a broad scope of themes including effective planning, benefits, wellbeing, economic aspects, attitudes and ideologies. The chapter authors have hands-on experience of language revitalization in many countries around the world, and each chapter includes a wealth of examples, such as case studies from specific languages and language areas. Clearly and accessibly written, it is suitable for non-specialists as well as academic researchers and students interested in language revitalization. This book is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.




Endangered Languages


Book Description

This book provides an overview of the issues surrounding language loss. It brings together work by theoretical linguists, field linguists, and non-linguist members of minority communities to provide an integrated view of how language is lost, from sociological and economic as well as from linguistic perspectives. The contributions to the volume fall into four categories. The chapters by Dorian and Grenoble and Whaley provide an overview of language endangerment. Grinevald, England, Jacobs, and Nora and Richard Dauenhauer describe the situation confronting threatened languages from both a linguistic and sociological perspective. The understudied issue of what (beyond a linguistic system) can be lost as a language ceases to be spoken is addressed by Mithun, Hale, Jocks, and Woodbury. In the last section, Kapanga, Myers-Scotton, and Vakhtin consider the linguistic processes which underlie language attrition.




The Oxford Handbook of Endangered Languages


Book Description

The endangered languages crisis is widely acknowledged among scholars who deal with languages and indigenous peoples as one of the most pressing problems facing humanity, posing moral, practical, and scientific issues of enormous proportions. Simply put, no area of the world is immune from language endangerment. The Oxford Handbook of Endangered Languages, in 39 chapters, provides a comprehensive overview of the efforts that are being undertaken to deal with this crisis. A comprehensive reference reflecting the breadth of the field, the Handbook presents in detail both the range of thinking about language endangerment and the variety of responses to it, and broadens understanding of language endangerment, language documentation, and language revitalization, encouraging further research. The Handbook is organized into five parts. Part 1, Endangered Languages, addresses the fundamental issues that are essential to understanding the nature of the endangered languages crisis. Part 2, 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 3, Language Revitalization, includes approaches, practices, and strategies for revitalizing endangered and sleeping ("dormant") languages. Part 4, Endangered Languages and Biocultural Diversity, extends the discussion of language endangerment beyond its conventional boundaries to consider the interrelationship of language, culture, and environment, and the common forces that now threaten the sustainability of their diversity. Part 5, 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.




Endangered Languages and Languages in Danger


Book Description

This peer-reviewed collection brings together the latest research on language endangerment and language rights. It creates a vibrant, interdisciplinary platform for the discussion of the most pertinent and urgent topics central to vitality and equality of languages in today’s globalised world. The novelty of the volume lies in the multifaceted view on the variety of dangers that languages face today, such as extinction through dwindling speaker populations and lack of adequate preservation policies or inequality in different social contexts (e.g. access to justice, education and research resources). There are examples of both loss and survival, and discussion of multiple factors that condition these two different outcomes. We pose and answer difficult questions such as whether forced interventions in preventing loss are always warranted or indeed viable. The emerging shared perspective is that of hope to inspire action towards improving the position of different languages and their speakers through research of this kind.




When Languages Die


Book Description

It is commonly agreed by linguists and anthropologists that the majority of languages spoken now around the globe will likely disappear within our lifetime. The phenomenon known as language death has started to accelerate as the world has grown smaller. This extinction of languages, and the knowledge therein, has no parallel in human history. K. David Harrison's book is the first to focus on the essential question, what is lost when a language dies? What forms of knowledge are embedded in a language's structure and vocabulary? And how harmful is it to humanity that such knowledge is lost forever? Harrison spans the globe from Siberia, to North America, to the Himalayas and elsewhere, to look at the human knowledge that is slowly being lost as the languages that express it fade from sight. He uses fascinating anecdotes and portraits of some of these languages' last remaining speakers, in order to demonstrate that this knowledge about ourselves and the world is inherently precious and once gone, will be lost forever. This knowledge is not only our cultural heritage (oral histories, poetry, stories, etc.) but very useful knowledge about plants, animals, the seasons, and other aspects of the natural world--not to mention our understanding of the capacities of the human mind. Harrison's book is a testament not only to the pressing issue of language death, but to the remarkable span of human knowledge and ingenuity. It will fascinate linguists, anthropologists, and general readers.




Indigenous Technology Knowledge Systems


Book Description

There has been a growing interest in indigenous knowledge systems and research. This interest has been mainly triggered by the need to decolonize education as a response to the colonial onslaught on indigenous knowledge and people. Research has, however, concentrated on the generality of the indigenous knowledge system rather than on its related dimensions. One area that has suffered a lack of attention is indigenous conceptions of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) despite the unquestionable evidence of STEM in indigenous contexts. Most STEM is presented by colonial establishments and representations, especially in developed/modern/urban contexts, which portray STEM as a colonial construct. This book focuses on indigenous technological knowledge systems education (ITKSE). Indigenous people have been at the front of technological developments from pre-colonial times. The list of precolonial industries, science, and technology is extensive, including blacksmithing, wood-carving, textile-weaving and dyeing, leather works, beadworks, pottery making, architecture, agricultural breeding, metal-working, salt production, gold-smithing, copper-smithing, leather-crafting, soap-making, bronze-casting, canoe-building, brewing, glass-making, and agriculture, for example. In some parts of the world such as Africa and Australia, these technologies still exist. ITKSE should not be left to exist outside of the technology education curriculum and classroom as it can benefit both indigenous students, who have been denied learning about what is relevant to them, and non-indigenous students. These cultural groups can expand their knowledge of technology by learning both ITKSE and Western technological knowledge systems education (WTKSE). ITKSE also presents opportunities for technology teachers to reflect on and revisit their depth of technological knowledge, pedagogies, and assessment. The intent of this book is transformational in the sense that it brings decolonial and indigenous perspectives into the technology education context. It extends technology education in the sense that it will not only influence Western-minded architects, artisans, designers, etc. but encourage indigenous-mindedness as well.