Language Decline and Death in Africa
Language Decline and Death in Africa

Author: Herman Batibo

Publisher: Multilingual Matters

Published: 2005-01-01

Total Pages: 196

ISBN-13: 9781853598081

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The aim of this book is to inform both scholars and the public about the nature and extent of the problem of language decline and death in Africa. It resourcefully traces the main causes and circumstances of language endangerment, the processes and extent of language shift and death, and the consequences of language loss to the continent's rich linguistic and cultural heritage. The book outlines some of the challenges that have emerged out of the situation.

Language Death
Language Death

Author: David Crystal

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2002-04-29

Total Pages: 212

ISBN-13: 9780521012713

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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.

Africa's Endangered Languages
Africa's Endangered Languages

Author: Jason Kandybowicz

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2017

Total Pages: 521

ISBN-13: 0190256346

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This book examines the endangered languages of Africa from both documentary and theoretical perspectives, highlighting the threats of extinction many of them face and the challenges and implications each bring to bear on linguistic theory. It focuses on the symbiosis between documentary and theoretical methodologies, and its consequences for the preservation of endangered languages, both in the African context and more broadly.

Language Death
Language Death

Author: Nancy C. Dorian

Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press

Published: 2016-11-11

Total Pages: 224

ISBN-13: 1512815586

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This book is a volume in the Penn Press Anniversary Collection. To mark its 125th anniversary in 2015, the University of Pennsylvania Press rereleased more than 1,100 titles from Penn Press's distinguished backlist from 1899-1999 that had fallen out of print. Spanning an entire century, the Anniversary Collection offers peer-reviewed scholarship in a wide range of subject areas.

When Languages Die
When Languages Die

Author: K. David Harrison

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2008

Total Pages: 305

ISBN-13: 0195372069

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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?

Language Endangerment
Language Endangerment

Author: David Bradley

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2019-11-21

Total Pages: 301

ISBN-13: 1107041139

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Investigates the endangerment of languages and the loss of traditional cultural diversity, and how to respond.

A Grammar of Tommo So
A Grammar of Tommo So

Author: Laura McPherson

Publisher: Walter de Gruyter

Published: 2013-10-29

Total Pages: 648

ISBN-13: 3110301075

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Tommo So is a Dogon language with approximately 60,000 speakers in Mali, West Africa. As only the second full grammatical description of a Dogon language, this volume is a critical resource for solving the mystery of Dogon's genetic affiliation with other languages in Africa. Tommo So is an SOV language with isolating nominal morphology and agglutinative verbal morphology; suffixes on the verb mark tense/aspect/negation as well as subject agreement. The phonology is sensitive to levels of verbal morphology in that variable vowel harmony applies less frequently as one moves to outer layers of the morphology. The tone system of Tommo So is of typological interest in both its phonological and syntactic instantiations. Phonologically, it is a two-tone system of H and L, but these specified tones contrast with a surface-underspecified tone. Grammatically, the lexical tone of a word is often overwritten by syntactically-induced overlays. For example, an inalienable noun's tone will be replaced with L if it is possessed by a non-pronominal possessor, and by either H or HL if the possessor is pronominal. The language has also innovated a series of locative quasi-verbs and focus particles sensitive to pragmatic factors like certainty.

Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger
Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger

Author: Christopher Moseley

Publisher: UNESCO

Published: 2010-01-01

Total Pages: 221

ISBN-13: 9231040960

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Languages are not only tools of communication, they also reflect a view of the world. Languages are vehicles of value systems and cultural expressions and are an essential component of the living heritage of humanity. Yet, many of them are in danger of disappearing. UNESCO's Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger tries to raise awareness on language endangerment. This third edition has been completely revised and expanded to include new series of maps and new points of view.

Globalization and Language Vitality
Globalization and Language Vitality

Author: Cécile B. Vigouroux

Publisher: A&C Black

Published: 2008-11-05

Total Pages: 302

ISBN-13: 082649515X

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This book discusses the effects of globalization on languages in Africa. In contrast to previous studies, the contributors examine whether or not globalization is affecting African languages in the same ways and at the same rate in different countries, and how local experiences of language change vary from place to place. Rather than seeing English as the 'killer language' par excellence, the contributors probe ways in which languages are being used side by side to complement each other in some contexts while competing against European colonial languages in others. The result is a diverse canvas of language vitality in the African context, including matters of endangerment and loss, through the lense of globalization in its various interpretations. This book is a must read for students and researchers interested in language change and death and in the fate of European languages in the rest of the world.

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

Author: James Essegbey

Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing Company

Published: 2015-10-15

Total Pages: 324

ISBN-13: 9027268150

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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.