Language Documentation and Endangerment in Africa
Language Documentation and Endangerment in Africa

Author: James Essegbey

Publisher:

Published: 2015

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9789027244529

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

This volume brings together a number of important perspectives on language documentation and endangerment in Africa from an international cohort of scholars with vast experience in the field. Offering insights from rural and urban settings throughout the continent, these essays consider topics that range from the development of a writing system to ideologies of language endangerment, from working with displaced communities to the role of colonial languages in reshaping African repertoires, and from the insights of archeology to the challenges of language documentation as a doctoral project. The authors are concerned with both theoretical and practical aspects of language documentation as they address the ways in which the African context both differs from and resembles contexts of endangerment elsewhere in the world. This volume will be useful to fieldworkers and documentalists who work in Africa and beyond.

Africa's Endangered Languages
Africa's Endangered Languages

Author: Jason Kandybowicz

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2017-07-10

Total Pages: 521

ISBN-13: 0190256354

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Relatively little is known about Africa's endangered languages. Unlike indigenous languages in Australia, North Asia, and the Americas, which are predominantly threatened by colonizers, African languages are threatened most immediately by other local languages. As a result, the threat of language extinction is perceived as lower in Africa than in other parts of the globe, and a disproportionate amount of research is devoted to the study of endangered African languages when compared to any other linguistically threatened region in the world. There are approximately 308 highly endangered languages spoken in Africa (roughly 12% of all African languages) and at least 201 extinct African languages. This volume hopes to illuminate and challenge this trend. Chapters offer both documentary and theoretical perspectives, emphasizing the symbiotic relationship between the two approaches and its implications for the preservation of endangered languages, both in the African context and more broadly. Documentary-oriented chapters deal with key issues in African language documentation including language preservation and revitalization, community activism, and data collection and dissemination methodologies, among others. Theoretically-oriented chapters provide detailed descriptions and analyses of phonetic, phonological, morphological, syntactic, and semantic phenomena, and connect these to current theoretical issues and debates. Africa's Endangered Languages provides thorough coverage of a continent's neglected languages that will spur linguists and Africanists alike to work to protect them.

Language Diversity Endangered
Language Diversity Endangered

Author: Matthias Brenzinger

Publisher: Walter de Gruyter

Published: 2008-08-22

Total Pages: 473

ISBN-13: 311019712X

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

This book presents a comprehensive overview of endangered languages with a global coverage. It features such well-known specialists as Michael Krauss, Willem F. H. Adelaar, Denny Moore, Colette Grinevald, Akira Yamamoto, Roger Blench, Bruce Connell, Tapani Salminen, Olga Kazakevich, Aleksandr Kibrik, Jonathan Owens, David Bradley, George van Driem, Nicholas Evans, Stephen A. Wurm, Darrell Tryon and Matthias Brenzinger. The contributions are unique in analysing the present extent and the various kinds of language endangerment by applying shared general indicators for the assessment of language endangerment. Apart from presenting the specific situations of language endangerment at the sub-continental level, the volume discusses major issues that bear universally on language endangerment. The actual study of endangered languages is carefully examined, for example, against the ethics and pragmatics of fieldwork. Practical aspects of community involvement in language documentation are discussed, such as the setting up of local archives and the training of local linguists. Numerous case studies illustrate different language shift environments with specific replacing factors, such as colonial and religious conquests, migrations and governmental language education. The book is of interest to students and scholars of linguistics with particularfocus on endangered languages (and their documentation), typology, and sociolinguistics as well as to anthropologists and language activists.

Vanishing Voices
Vanishing Voices

Author: Daniel Nettle

Publisher: Oxford : Oxford University Press

Published: 2000

Total Pages: 254

ISBN-13: 0195136241

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Nettle and Romaine paint a breathtaking landscape that shows why so many of the world's languages are disappearing-and more importantly, why it matters. - BOOK JACKET.

One Thousand Languages
One Thousand Languages

Author: Peter Austin

Publisher: Univ of California Press

Published: 2008

Total Pages: 298

ISBN-13: 9780520255609

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Presents an overview of the living, endangered, and extinct languages of the world, providing the total number of speakers of the language, its history, and maps of the geographic areas where it is presently spoken or where it was spoken in the past.

Language Death
Language Death

Author: David Crystal

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2002-04-29

Total Pages: 212

ISBN-13: 9780521012713

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

The rapid endangerment and death of many minority languages across the world is a matter of widespread concern, not only among linguists and anthropologists but among all concerned with issues of cultural identity in an increasingly globalized culture. By some counts, only 600 of the 6,000 or so languages in the world are 'safe' from the threat of extinction. A leading commentator and popular writer on language issues, David Crystal asks the fundamental question, 'Why is language death so important?', reviews the reasons for the current crisis, and investigates what is being done to reduce its impact. This 2002 book contains not only intelligent argument, but moving descriptions of the decline and demise of particular languages, and practical advice for anyone interested in pursuing the subject further.

Endangered Languages and New Technologies
Endangered Languages and New Technologies

Author: Mari C. Jones

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2014-12-04

Total Pages: 229

ISBN-13: 1316123634

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

At a time when many of the world's languages are at risk of extinction, the imperative to document, analyse and teach them before time runs out is very great. At this critical time new technologies, such as visual and aural archiving, digitisation of textual resources, electronic mapping and social media, have the potential to play an integral role in language maintenance and revitalisation. Drawing on studies of endangered languages from around the world - Europe, Asia, Africa and North and South America - this volume considers how these new resources might best be applied, and the problems that they can bring. It also re-assesses more traditional techniques of documentation in light of new technologies and works towards achieving a practicable synthesis of old and new methodologies. This accessible volume will be of interest to researchers in language endangerment, language typology and linguistic anthropology, and to community members working in native language maintenance.

Languages in Africa
Languages in Africa

Author: Elizabeth C. Zsiga

Publisher: Georgetown University Press

Published: 2015-03-03

Total Pages: 220

ISBN-13: 1626161534

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

People in many African communities live within a series of concentric circles when it comes to language. In a small group, a speaker uses an often unwritten and endangered mother tongue that is rarely used in school. A national indigenous language—written, widespread, sometimes used in school—surrounds it. An international language like French or English, a vestige of colonialism, carries prestige, is used in higher education, and promises mobility—and yet it will not be well known by its users. The essays in Languages in Africa explore the layers of African multilingualism as they affect language policy and education. Through case studies ranging across the continent, the contributors consider multilingualism in the classroom as well as in domains ranging from music and film to politics and figurative language. The contributors report on the widespread devaluing and even death of indigenous languages. They also investigate how poor teacher training leads to language-related failures in education. At the same time, they demonstrate that education in a mother tongue can work, linguists can use their expertise to provoke changes in language policies, and linguistic creativity thrives in these multilingual communities.

Endangered Languages in the 21st Century
Endangered Languages in the 21st Century

Author: Eda Derhemi

Publisher: Taylor & Francis

Published: 2023-02-24

Total Pages: 329

ISBN-13: 1000835499

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Endangered Languages in the 21st Century provides research on endangered languages in the contemporary world, the challenges still to be faced, the work still to be done, and the methods and practices that have come to characterize efforts to revive and maintain disadvantaged indigenous languages around the world. With contributions from scholars across the field, the book brings fresh data and insights to this imperative, but still relatively young, field of linguistics. While the studies acknowledge the threat of losing languages in an unprecedented way, they focus on cases that show resilience and explore paths to sustainable progress. The articles are also intended as a celebration of the 25 years’ work of the Foundation for Endangered Languages, and as a parting gift to FEL’s founder and quarter-century chair, Nick Ostler. This book will be informative for researchers, instructors, and specialists in the field of endangered languages. The book can also be useful for university graduate or undergraduate students, and language activists. The Open Access version of this book, available at www.taylorfrancis.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license.