Documenting Endangered Languages
Documenting Endangered Languages

Author: Geoffrey Haig

Publisher: Walter de Gruyter

Published: 2011-11-30

Total Pages: 365

ISBN-13: 3110260026

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The rapid decline in the world's linguistic diversity has prompted the emergence of documentary linguistics. While documentary linguistics aims primarily at creating a durable, accessible and comprehensive record of languages, it has also been a driving force in developing language annotation and analysis software, archiving architecture, improved fieldwork methodologies, and new standards in data accountability and accessibility. More recently, researchers have begun to recognize the immense potential available in the archived data as a source for linguistic analysis, so that the field has become of increasing importance for typologists, but also for neighbouring disciplines. The present volume contains contributions by practitioners of language documentation, most of whom have been involved in the Volkswagen Foundation's DoBeS programme (Dokumentation Bedrohter Sprachen). The topics covered in the volume reflect a field that has matured over the last decade and includes both retrospective accounts as well as those that address new challenges: linguistic annotation practice, fieldwork and interaction with speech communities, developments and challenges in archiving digital data, multimedia lexicon applications, corpora from endangered languages as a source for primary-data typology, as well as specific areas of linguistic analysis that are raised in documentary linguistics.

Endangered Languages and Languages in Danger
Endangered Languages and Languages in Danger

Author: Luna Filipović

Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing Company

Published: 2016-10-03

Total Pages: 413

ISBN-13: 9027266441

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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.

Lessons from Documented Endangered Languages
Lessons from Documented Endangered Languages

Author: K. David Harrison

Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing

Published: 2008

Total Pages: 382

ISBN-13: 9027229902

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This volume represents part of an unprecedented and still growing effort to advance, coordinate and disseminate the scientific documentation of endangered languages. As the pace of language extinction increases, linguists and native communities are accelerating their efforts to speak, remember, record, analyze and archive as much as possible of our common human heritage that is linguistic diversity. The window of opportunity for documentation is narrower than the actual lifetime of a language, and is now rapidly closing for many languages represented in this volume. The authors of these papers unveil newly collected data from previously poorly known and endangered languages. They organize highly complex linguistic facts­ - paradigms, affixes, vowel patterns­ - while pointing out the theoretically challenging aspects of these. Beyond this, they reflect on the social and human dimensions, discussing particular problems of nostalgia and modernity, memory and forgetting, and obsolescence and ethics, while viewing language as not merely data on a page but as a living creation in the minds and mouths of its speakers.

The Cambridge Handbook of Endangered Languages
The Cambridge Handbook of Endangered Languages

Author: Peter K. Austin

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2011-03-24

Total Pages: 581

ISBN-13: 113950083X

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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.

Revitalizing Endangered Languages
Revitalizing Endangered Languages

Author: Justyna Olko

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2021-01-31

Total Pages:

ISBN-13: 110862443X

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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.

Language Documentation
Language Documentation

Author: Lenore A. Grenoble

Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing

Published: 2010

Total Pages: 359

ISBN-13: 9027211752

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"Language documentation," also often called "documentary linguistics," is a relatively new subfield in linguistics which has emerged in part as a response to the pressing need for collecting, describing, and archiving material on the increasing number of endangered languages. The present book details the most recent developments in this rapidly developing field with papers written by linguists primarily based in academic institutions in North America, although many conduct their fieldwork elsewhere. The articles in this volume position papers and case studies focus on some of the most critical issues in the field. These include (1) the nature of contributions to linguistic theory and method provided by documentary linguistics, including the content appropriate for documentation; (2) the impact and demands of technology in documentation; (3) matters of practice in collaborations among linguists and communities, and in the necessary training of students and community members to conduct documentation activities; and (4) the ethical issues involved in documentary linguistics."

Language Endangerment and Language Revitalization
Language Endangerment and Language Revitalization

Author: Tasaku Tsunoda

Publisher: Walter de Gruyter

Published: 2013-02-06

Total Pages: 336

ISBN-13: 3110896583

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In almost every part of the world, minority languages are threatened with extinction. At the same time, dedicated efforts are being made to document endangered languages, to maintain them, and even to revive once-extinct languages. The present volume examines a wide range of issues that concern language endangerment andlanguage revitalization. Among other things, it is shown that languages may be endangered to different degrees, endangerment situations in selected areas of the world are surveyed and definitions of language death and types of language death presented. The book also examines causes of language endangerment, speech behaviour in a language endangerment situation, structural changes in endangered languages, as well as types of speakers encountered in a language endangerment situation. In addition, methods of documentation and of training for linguists are proposed which will enable scholars to play an active role in the documentation of endangered languages and in language revitalization. The book presents a comprehensive overview of the field. It is clearly written and contains ample references to the relevant literature, thus providing useful guidance for further research. The author often draws on his own experience of documenting endangered languages and of language revival activities in Australia. The volume is of interest to a wide readership, including linguists, anthropologists, sociologists, and educators.

The Oxford Handbook of Endangered Languages
The Oxford Handbook of Endangered Languages

Author: Kenneth L. Rehg

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2018-07-18

Total Pages: 1037

ISBN-13: 0190877049

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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.

Responses to Language Endangerment
Responses to Language Endangerment

Author: Elena Mihas

Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing

Published: 2013-11-15

Total Pages: 291

ISBN-13: 9027271151

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This volume further complicates and advances the contemporary perspective on language endangerment by examining the outcomes of the most commonly cited responses to language endangerment, i.e. language documentation, language revitalization, and training. The present collection takes stock of many complex and pressing issues, such as the assessment of the degree of language endangerment, the contribution of linguistic scholarship to language revitalization programs, the creation of successful language reclamation programs, the emergence of languages that arise as a result of revitalization efforts after interrupted transmission, the ethics of fieldwork, and the training of field linguists and language educators. The volume’s case studies provide detailed personal accounts of fieldworkers and language activists who are grappling with issues of language documentation and revitalization in the concrete physical and socio-cultural settings of native speaker communities in different regions of the world.

Endangered Languages
Endangered Languages

Author: Sarah G. Thomason

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2015-04-23

Total Pages: 245

ISBN-13: 0521865735

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An introduction to language endangerment. What is it? How and why does it happen? Why should we care?