Talk:Endangered language

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Axiomatic Linguistics and Graphemics Link

I was wondering if someone could help me post the external link to this forum. I'm not quite sure how to post a link in the format specified.

It is a group a friend and myself created so I realize that this would be self-promotion, however, I feel that this link will greatly benefit anyone looking to help preserve Endangered Languages in the future, reasons being that the whole purpose of the forum is to help people study endangered languages. As of right now I'm trying to get the community to grow but once it hits off it will be a major asset in the preservation of languages. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.56.19.102 (talk) 17:33, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

Native American

re virtually all Native American languages in danger of becoming extinct? What about Tlingit, the languages of Alaska, Zuni, Cherokee, etc.? -- Zoe

I'd still like some info about the question above. Especially Cherokee. It seems to be still thriving. -- Zoe

Yes, basically all Native American languages are endangered (although I believe that in South America the situation in many places is better — however, I know so little about that continent). If you want to learn more about this, a good place to start is here:

• Hale, Ken; Krauss, Michael; Watahomigie, Lucille J.; Yamamoto, Akira Y.; Craig, Colette; Jeanne, LaVerne M. et al. (1992). Endangered languages. Language, 68 (1), 1-42.

Look this up at your local library. (If you cant get a hold of this for some reason, let me know. Maybe I can email a copy of it to a few folks, although I probably cant email it to a million people...). Peace. - Ish ishwar 07:51, 2005 Feb 23 (UTC)

One point about Navajo: It is often reported that Navajo is a thriving language and that this language has the most native speakers of all other indigeneous languages in North America. This is true. However, it is also true that there are not as many children learning Navajo as there were, say, 40 years ago. So, if this is true of Navajo, it is very very true of so many other languages. - Ish ishwar 00:36, 2005 Mar 5 (UTC)

The list of Native American endangered languages in the Endangered Languages article seems odd. It includes Catawba (which is apparently extinct, not endangered) and Klamath-Modoc (most probably also extinct, it had one single speaker in 1998), as well as Lakota, a dialect of a language with more than 26,000 speakers. An expert on the subject should probably check the list. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 130.226.87.165 (talk) 14:24, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

Quote from "Endangered languages"

Since I feel that this is important, I am providing a quote from the above mentioned paper (1st 4 paragraphs) in the hopes that others will be intrigued enough to take a look:

"Like most people who have done linguistic field work for thirty years or so, I have worked on languages which are 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 workers 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 confined areas, and among quite small communties—as, for example, in parts of Arnhem Land and Cape York Peninsula, Australia, and in the bilingual Sumu and Miskitu communties of Central America. By contrast, language loss in the modern period is of a different character, in its extent and in its implications. It is part of a much larger process of LOSS OF CULTURAL AND INTELLECTUAL DIVERSITY in which politically dominant languages and cultures simply overwhelm indigenous local languages and cultures, placing them in a condition which can only be described as embattled. The process is not unrelated to the simultaneous loss of diversity in the zoological and botanical worlds. An ecological analogy is not altogether inappropriate. We understand to some extent the dangers inherent in the loss of biological diversity on this earth. It is correct to ask, I think, whether there are also dangers inherent in the loss of linguistic diversity...." (Hale et al. 1992: 1-2)

And another bit:

"Of supreme significance in relation to linguistic diversity, and to local languages in particular, is the simple truth that language—in the general, multifaceted sense—embodies the intellectual wealth of the people who use it. A language and the intellectual productions of its speakers are often inseparable, in fact. Some forms of verbal art—verse, song, or chant—depend crucially on morphological and phonological, even syntactic, properties of the language in which it is formed. In such cases the art could not exist without the language, quite literally. Even where the dependency is not so organic as this, an intellectual tradition may be so thoroughly a part of a people's linguistic ethnography as to be, in effect, inseparable from the language.

"In this circumstance, there is a certain tragedy for the human purpose. The loss of local languages, and of the cultural systems that they express, has meant irretrievable loss of diverse and interesting intellectual wealth, the priceless products of human mental industry. The process of language loss is ongoing. Many linguistic field workers have had, and will continue to have, the experience of bearing witness to the loss, for all time, of a language and of the cultural products which the language served to express for the intellectual nourishment of its speakers..." (Hale et al. 1992: 36)

The essays in this article are the following:

• On endangered languages and the safeguarding of diversity.
• The world's languages in crisis.
• Local reactions to perceived language decline.
• A constitutional response to language endangerment: The case of Nicaragua.
• An institutional response to language endangerment: A proposal for a Native American Language Center.
• Doing Mayan linguistics in Guatemala.
• Language endangerment and the human value of linguistic diversity.

Happy languaging! - Ish ishwar 00:41, 2005 Mar 5 (UTC)

Yiddish

I coulda sworn Yiddish was on the endangered list? Or is it not-quite-endangered-yet? -Penta 07:09, 14 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Nope, as far as I know it's going quite well, mainly among smaller communities outside of Israel. I think quite a few Orthadox in Israel speak it as well, but I'm not sure.

Zitat

here is quote from a SIL paper:

“The only person I have left to talk to is a linguist and talking to a linguist is no fun.” — Amerindian woman’s comment to Joshua Fishman (Fishman 2000:24)

• Fishman, Joshua A. 2000. Reversing language shift: RLS theory and practice revisited. Assessing ethnolinguistic vitality: Theory and practice: Selected papers from the third International Language Assessment Conference, ed. by Gloria Kindell and M. Paul Lewis, 1–25. Dallas: SIL International.

Non-factoidism

What does this mean?

"It is unclear whether such a monolingual culture would be stable enough to actually reap such putative benefits."

This an opinion veiled in didactic irony ("it is unclear whether", meaning "I don't think"), followed by a complete POV conjecture about a future event that is at this stage entirely unpredictable ("such a monolongual culture would be stable enough...") ending in a finale of fireworks and SAT synonyms that mean, essentially, "to be profitable".

So to put it in other words, the meaning of this sentence is "I don't think, in my opinion, although this hasn't happened yet, that a monolingual culture would be more profitable than a multilingual culture."

Can this be deleted?

And by that I mean, this should be deleted because it is not a fact, but a point of view.

(though I agree with the opinion... vive la polyglossie !)

Daniel

POV paragraph?

Causes

Children in the early to mid 1900s within the current USA and Canadian states and provinces were often stolen or their family was tricked into giving them to government agency 'residential schools'.

The residential schools in the USA and Canada, then proceeded to severely abuse the Native American Children in ways that many people can not even imagine. For example, many of those Native American Indian Children would get their tongues pierced with needles as a punishment from the nuns, when ever they dared to speak their own language. The residential schools also molested the Native American Children and abused them to the point of killing them often. The children were told on a daily basis that they were not loved nor wanted by their own families or anyone in the outside world. Those children were raised by people that never viewed them as fellow human beings, only because they did not speak english and were not raised to blindly follow the religion of the day. Many adults still exist today that survived the residential school abuse.

Looks biased to me.

• I agree, have tagged this section as WP:NPOV. Kwarizmi 17:22, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

Severe bias

This article is pure propaganda by people who think it would be just awfull if we could all talk to each other easily. It makes the assumption that if theres only one language there can be only one way of thinking. Last time I checked, ideas mattered not just the words you say them with. The article says that a one language world would be frozen and new ideas would be put down. Saying its bad for a culture to shift languages sounds like being frozen and avoiding outside ideas to me. My own oppinion is that people should choose to be like they want too and not worry about what their culture tells them to act like. The article should just state the fact that languages are going out of use and not give a sermon on how thats terrible. --74.38.99.188 23:53, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

Those are some pretty strong words. I went through and read the article again, looking for the bias that you spoke of. I'm having trouble seeing what, in the actual words written, you're identifying as bias. The article does not say anything like "a one language world would be frozen and new ideas would be put down," at least not that I could find. It looks to me like the article is quite neutral and factual. Where it talks about views of endangered languages, it identifies them as views, and presents them in quite a balanced way. Maybe you could be more explicit about what you see as biased, to help us improve the article?

As an aside, running your contribution through a spell checker would help you to be taken more seriously. A contribution that's full of spelling and grammar errors communicates a degree of carelessness and disrespect to your readers that can lead to them discounting what you have to say. Just a friendly suggestion. Waitak 16:53, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

I would like to remind everyone that, harsh as it may seem, this article is in no way about your personal opinions or emotional reactions. Who cares what you may think? An endangered language is already defined by the linguistic community so the article belongs here. If you can't choke down your anger, work on some other of the over a million articles here until you find your niche. Meanwhile this section stands in need of verifying references. If you insist on being here, why don't you help to find them? Because, if we can't find any, out it goes.Dave (talk) 14:13, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

Wow, Dave, it looks like someone expressed an opinion other than yours.

I'm sure glad you straightened them out before we had much more of that!

Ornithikos (talk) 00:44, 27 June 2013 (UTC)

Why are people responding to the original post? WP:DENY. Ling.Nut ^{(talk—WP:3IAR)} 11:26, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

I find the article somewhat biased in that it takes for the granted the idea that endangered languages should be preserved. Maybe some references to scholars who argue against the need to preserve endangered languages would make the article more neutral. 70.26.91.2 (talk) 05:15, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

There are references to this viewpoint, e.g. Ladefoged 1992. It is an extreme minority viewpoint though and it should not have much weight in the article.User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 00:51, 27 June 2013 (UTC)

Ladefoged's view may be "an extreme minority viewpoint" among scholars and activists who are outsiders. Clearly, among many speakers of endangered languages the idea of letting languages die is a majority opinion.Pete unseth (talk) 21:29, 28 June 2013 (UTC)

I don't think that is clear at all. And I've never read a source that suggests it is. Or worked in a language community where that is the consensus. Provide the literature if it exists and then we can add it.User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 21:47, 28 June 2013 (UTC)

Template placement - language pages, right?

Just realized this WP appliews to a lot of articles in the NorthAmNative and in the BC and other Canadian wikiprojects; as noted all are endangered; is it redundant to include this WP'stemplate on, say, Tahltan language or St'at'imcets language or Halkomelem?Skookum1 (talk) 04:17, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

Ratings of endangerment for specific languages

Ethnologue 17, just released last month, includes estimates of the level of endangerment for all languages of the world (including sign languages), using a revision of the EGIDS scale. Since I'm one of those who worked on these ratings (especially those for sign languages), it isn't appropriate for me to make a change in the article. However, I'd like to point this out to the community of people working on it to let them decide whether and how this can be incorporated.

Another online resource that could be mentioned is the Endangered Languages Project (http://www.endangeredlanguages.com/), which also attempts to rate the level of endangerment. It uses somewhat different criteria than Ethnologue, and the two references have different sources (that need to be reconciled), but overall the two websites paint a similar picture as to the number of endangered languages and degree of endangerment. Again, I'll leave this up to y'all to figure out how to incorporate this. AlbertBickford (talk) 20:25, 15 March 2013 (UTC)

Who does saving endangered languages benefit?

I thank whatever gods there be that I was not raised speaking an "endangered language" and that no well-paid specialists are doing their best to maintain the "cultural diversity of the world" by building a language ghetto for me to be segregated into. This article refers to views such as mine only enough to provide a venue for seeming to discredit them, and is therefore not an encyclopedia article but a propaganda piece.

The article notes that speakers of dying languages mostly prefer to preserve them, but ignores the fact that, wherever you go, young people given any choice gravitate towards the available language they find to be most useful. Preserving dying languages therefore requires that young people be denied a choice of languages. The article should describe this need and analyze techniques for restricting linguistic freedom. Ornithikos (talk) 00:11, 27 June 2013 (UTC)

That is incorrect. No one has ever argued that anyone should be denied a choice. In fact most linguists working with revitalization endangered languages consider it a way to make speaking the endangered a viable choice, one which the community has been denied through socioeconomic oppression and cultural hegemony.User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 21:49, 28 June 2013 (UTC)

Actually, children kidnapped into reculturation camps were typically forbidden to speak their native language, or otherwise express their cultures; and the attendant punishments were extraordinary. Such practices are now mostly defunct, creating the problem I referred to. How can you guide children into adopting a language they know will be of little practical use to them, rather than choosing a language they know will provide access to a large part of the world? By what right do you truncate children's readiness for real life, giving them in exchange a foster home in a diorama. One answer: preserve languages and cultures (undeniably a worthy goal) using computer capabilities, and ban the practice of raising children to be museum pieces, just as we ban other ways to use people as tools. Ornithikos (talk) 13:07, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

Yes, that is true and that is exactly one of the reasons that languages are endangered and it is the exact opposite of what linguists are doing. You are clearly confused about what language revitalization is and who is doing it and for what reasons. It is generally the communities of speakers who work with linguists because they want to reclaim their language that was taken from them through the oppressive practices you describe. Raising a child to speak an indigenous language is not making a museum piece - first of all learning an indigenous language does not mean you can't learn the majority language of your culture and second of all most indigenous parents who choose to teach their children the indigenous language do so to reproduce their culture and cultural values. Exactly the same reason others raise their children to follow their own religion and not that of others or to celebrate the hollidays of the community in which they live and not those of other communities. User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 13:17, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

Well, this sounds more hopeful than I had expected. One question will put the point on it. Imagine a young person who has little knowledge of his ancestral culture or its language, is academically and socially successful in his current culture and language, and hopes to be a computer programmer, for which profession the demand is high and the boy has shown considerable aptitude.

Suppose that the boy's ancestral culture/language has been found to be endangered, and he and his cohort will soon be enrolled in classes and activities that will restore the fading traditional knowledge. Suppose that the boy strongly objects, stating that he has no interest in his cultural legacy, that acquiring it will do nothing to help him live in the twenty-first century, and that the time needed for cultural retrofitting will disadvantage him in life by competing with time needed for his increasingly demanding technical studies.

The Question: Do you respect the boy's choices for his life, or do you redirect his time into mandatory cultural preservation, because you have decided that such redirection is the best course overall. Ornithikos (talk) 18:32, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

No one I have ever met or read would argue that anyone should receive mandatory instruction in an endangered language. Everyone who works in this field agrees that what has to be done is provide the option. I have never heard of mandatory schooling in an endangered language. If a community collectively decide that their language should not be spoken anymore, no linguist would try to force them to change their minds, even if they might question the wisdom of the decision. Language revitalization is always done in collaboration with a community, or at least with a group of community members who actively wish to preserve their ancestral language and culture. In the US very frequently tribes contact linguists to help establish revitalization programmes. The community I work with are interested in revitalizing the language because of the cultural tie, and also because if they can prove that they are an indigenous community (which in Mexico is defined through language) they can receive certain practical benefits from the state. User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 21:06, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

Of course there are cases in which a tribal nation or a previously colonized nation decides to require their children to learn the ancestral language, just like people in small nations may require schooling in their language because it is a vehicle for national cohesion, or the way that the Irish state requires their children to study a certain amount of Irish for nationalist reasons. This of course are political decisions that are not generally relevant for the kind of work linguists do with endangered languages, because once a language already has political support within a community or nation it is no longer considered to be as endangered. In Ireland this policy has generally been considered ineffective in terms of revitalizing the language (probably exactly because people usually dont learn well when forced to study rather than studying out of interest). In Greenland where the language has remained vigorous Greenlandic education is also mandatory after selfrule. This is no different from the fact that Denmark requires schooling of its children in the small Danish language. That is a question of Language policy, which is generally considered distinct from the question of language endangerment, and linguists working with revitalization endangered languages almost exclusively work to provide the option of language schooling in speech communities where this has nor previously existed as an option.User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 23:49, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

Agree with Maunus here - here are a few older books on this topic.Moxy (talk) 23:37, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

• Joan Albert Argenter,; Roberto McKenna Brown (2004). On the Margins of Nations: Endangered Languages and Linguistic Rights. Foundation for Endangered Languages. ISBN 978-0-9538248-6-1.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: extra punctuation (link)
• Joshua A. Fishman (2001). Can Threatened Languages Be Saved: Reversing Language Shift, Revisited : A 21st Century Perspective. Yeshiva University - Stanford University. ISBN 978-1-85359-492-2.

Language death & language shift -- cause and effect

The article currently says "Language shift can be the result of linguicide, in which ethnic group members no longer learn their heritage language as their first language." First of all, I personally strongly prefer "language death" to "linguicide". "Linguicide" is less well known, and also it is more often used in a more transitive sense, e.g. "The invaders committed linguicide by killing off most of the members of the community and banning the use of the language by the survivors", or "The government's policy of putting children in boarding schools and forbidding the use of the heritage language resulted in linguicide." See video on linguicide in Australia

But on a slightly question about the same sentence: what is the best way to speak of "language shift" and "language death" in terms of causation. The article as it stands suggests that shift is the result of language death. But it could also be argued that the language death is the result of shift. Should we leave this sentence as it is? Reverse the causation? Or restate it in a way that does not state the direction of causation? Pete unseth (talk) 20:53, 29 July 2016 (UTC)

First of all the definition of linguicide is incorrect, it is not linguicide when group members no longer learn the language as a first language - that is just language shift. Linguicide refers in my experience only to the effects of language policies that have the semi-intentional effect of causing language shift. It is not meaningful to say that language shift is the cause of language death - that gets the causation and the concepts backwards.·maunus · snunɐɯ· 13:28, 31 July 2016 (UTC)

Moribund language

Links from elsewhere about "moribund languages" redirect here, but there is no information about it here. and unless one was some kind of intellectual who already knew what "moribund" means, one would be none the wiser.```` — Preceding unsigned comment added by Lathamibird (talk • contribs) 04:37, 22 November 2016 (UTC)

Image

The triangular image should remove German, and replace it with Hindi and Portuguese (and possibly Bengali and Malay-Indonesian). These are the regional languages that transcend hundreds of millions of local language speakers. Cheers! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 180.222.165.93 (talk) 00:04, 1 May 2017 (UTC)

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