Extinct Languages of New England (2025)

WHEN ISLANDS LOSE DIALECTS The Case of the Ocracoke Brogue

2008

The transformation of many small islands from isolated, subsistence-based economies into well-known and desired tourist sites is often accompanied by significant language change and recession in ancestral island communities, a growing topic of concern in the field of sociolinguistics. This discussion considers language change and recession on the island of Ocracoke, a small barrier island located off the coast of North Carolina in the US. It demonstrates how language change is related to shifting social and economic factors and intraand inter-community relationships on the island. In the process, it also challenges the accepted definition of language endangerment in mainstream linguistics and argues on theoretical, historical, and cultural grounds for the inclusion of minority dialects threatened by dominant, mainstream varieties of English in the endangerment canon.

The Cambridge Handbook of Endangered Languages

2009

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 to both 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. The Handbook covers the essentials of language documentation and archiving, and also includes hands-on chapters on advocacy and support for endangered languages, development of writing systems for previously unwritten languages, education, training the next generation of researchers and activists, dictionary making, the ecology of languages, language and culture, language and society, language policy, and harnessing technology and new media in support of endangered languages.

Endangered Languages.:Endangered Languages

Journal of Linguistic Anthropology, 1995

lems, which arise more from availability than from lack of oversight, Genre and the New Rhetoric is a significant contribution to our understanding of a multiplicity of issues related to genre, such as rhetoric, philosophy of language, speech act theory, literacy, and language education. Endangered Languages. Robert H. Robins and Eugenius M. Uhlenbeck, eds. Berg Oxford, 1991.273 pp.

Endangered languages and porous selves

HAU: Journal of Ethnographic Theory

New Perspectives on Endangered Languages

Dying Words: Endangered Languages and What They Have To Tell Us - By Nicholas Evans: Book Reviews

International Journal of Applied Linguistics, 2010

Among a couple of dozen books in English written on language endangerment over the past two decades, this one is uniquely good. It is especially so for linguists, and perhaps particularly for those who are wondering if they would like to become linguists. All these books take note of the parlous state of the world's stock of languages and the fact that half of them now have fewer than 7,000 speakers each. That perhaps 4 per cent of them are disappearing every decade means that there is no room for complacency about the future. But the usual way is then to plead in general terms for the value that stands to be lost, the inner worlds known to small communities, the evidence of linguistic diversity that might illuminate scientific understanding of the potential of the human mind, and of the origins of the human race: noble stuff, but distant, and a bit vague. This book stands out because it is written by a linguist who has been active in tiny language communities over long periods. He can tell first-person stories about the role of their languages in the lives of his native-speaker friends and colleagues, in Australasia and the Pacific. He can go beyond the usual stock of 'good examples' hallowed in the literature, privileging the reader by giving access to his own experience. But as well as being experienced, he is learned. He says as much about metropolitan languages throughout history, and little-known languages of antiquity, as he does about modern languages spoken by small minorities in inaccessible places. In this book, Mandarin and Meroitic, Korean and Kayardild are all on a par. Evans emphasizes the human dimension of, and indeed human fascination for, linguistic data. He notes in his Prologue: 'you only hear what you listen for, and you only listen for what you are wondering about.' His explicit goal is to show us what we should be wondering about-a fundamental way to inspire further research. He also shows quite concretely what the scientific importance of this kind of linguistic knowledge has been in the past, and will be in the future. In the

Review of: The Languages of Native North America

2000

Mithun estimates that at least 300 distinct languages may have been spoken in North America on the eve of European contact. Of these, many disappeared without being adequately recorded or were not recorded at all. Of those that remained long enough to be documented in some appreciable detail, Goddard (I996: 3) lists I20 as already extinct by the mid I990s, and 72 as spoken by only a handful of elderly speakers. Of the remaining languages, 91 are no longer being learned naturally by children, and only 46 are still currently spoken by appreciable numbers of people of all ages. To this Mithun adds precise detail as to the exact number of speakers still extant, though unfortunately even her numbers are now probably a bit optimistic in some cases. This ongoing, catastrophic loss of so much of the continent\u27s linguistic diversity makes Mithun\u27s book all the more important as a record of what is being lost and as a possible inspiration to today\u27s linguists to take up the synchroni...

Endangered Languages

Journal of Linguistic Anthropology, 1995

Endangered Languages. Robert H. Robins and Eugenius M. Uhlenbeck. eds. Berg: Oxford, 1991. 273 pp.

Language Death and Endangered Languages

Abstract: Language is essential in humans’ lives; it is what takes to differentiate between animals and humans, it is what we use to understand ourselves. Upon all its status in human life, people are still crying of language disappearance, because many died and some are endangered. There are some questions that supposed to be asked, but only few were raised. We tried to look at major areas such as: the importance of languages, the statistics of languages, what really caused the endangerment, and a way out (solution). Though, the issue is very vast, but we tried and narrowed ourselves down to the minimal level just not to confuse readers. Key words: Language, death, endangered, and revitalization

Review of “The Languages of Native North America” by Marianne Mithun

Diachronica, 2002

The latest survey in the Cambridge series on linguistic geographic areas is clearly the product of years of fieldwork and meticulous research, yielding a detailed synthesis of diverse descriptive traditions of the isolates, creoles and at least 50 different language families of North America. The book is also supported