Nynorn: Die Rekonstruktion des Norn

2016 ◽  
Vol 24 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Natalie Korobzow
Keyword(s):  
Language Death ◽  
Language Endangerment ◽  
Language Revival ◽  
Scandinavian Language

AbstractThe following article strives to present a project that was launched by language enthusiasts in an attempt to revive Norn, a Scandinavian language that used to be spoken on the Northern Isles but died out about 200 years ago. On that account, the reasons and mechanics of language endangerment and language death are examined in this paper as well as different approaches to language revival or revitalization. The importance of language as a means of preserving one’s identity is only one of the reasons why these kinds of projects deserve more attention than they have gotten so far. Although Norn is classified as a

scholarly journals Language Revitalization: A Case Study of the Khoisan Languages

2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (3) ◽  
pp. 79
Author(s):  
Xinyi Yuan
Keyword(s):  
Language Revitalization ◽  
Modern Technology ◽  
Endangered Languages ◽  
Language Family ◽  
Language Death ◽  
Language Preservation ◽  
Language Endangerment ◽  
Language Revival ◽  
Effective Option

This paper introduces the concept of endangered languages and the corresponding solution of language revitalization. It first illustrates the importance of language preservation and the process of language endangerment and death. The two principal strategies of thwarting language death are discussed, with an emphasis on the language revitalization as the more effective option due to the difficulties that language revival faces. The most commonly successful approaches to language preservation are discussed such as establishing cultural pride and identity, education, and utilizing modern technology. These strategies are discussed in detail through the presentation of a case study: the Khoisan language family.

Language Ecologies: Ethics, Community, and Digital Affect

PMLA ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 131 (2) ◽  
pp. 373-380 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jonathan Hsy
Keyword(s):  
Language Loss ◽  
Data Sets ◽  
Humanitarian Crisis ◽  
Language Death ◽  
Language Endangerment

The global linguasphere is in a state of ecological and humanitarian crisis. In a powerful meditation in pmla, simon gikandi notes that the loss of any language (and of a culture sustained by it) is worthy of mourning and that language death around the globe is a matter of urgent collective concern. Relating great emotion when the “UNESCO Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger confronted me with the bleak reality of language endangerment measured in maps, graphs, and data sets,” he ponders the ethical and political stakes of widespread language loss (9). He ends by quoting (and translating) a poem by the anthropologist Miguel León-Portilla “captur[ing] what happens when a language dies” (13), and he builds to a stark closing dictum: “Letting a language die is an injustice, a denial of will to those who speak it” (14). In this forceful essay, metaphorical discourse of language death gives way to a poignant elegy that registers a strong affective and political investment in the sustainment of languages.

scholarly journals Two key concepts of language endangerment : language obsolescence and language death

Linguistica ◽  
2007 ◽  
Vol 47 (1) ◽  
pp. 21-33 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pierre Swiggers
Keyword(s):  
Accurate Information ◽  
Minority Languages ◽  
Language Awareness ◽  
Language Death ◽  
Language Endangerment ◽  
Linguistic Rights ◽  
Speech Communities ◽  
Major Loss ◽  
Coherent Frame

In the contemporary context of world-wide language endangerment, of linguistic imperialism and regression of minority languages, it is of vital importance to take initiatives for the maintenance and protection of linguistic biodiversity.  Languages that become extinct are a major loss, not only for the communities concerned but also for humanity in general. The role of linguists should not be confined to documentation and recording of threatened languages, but should be extended to policies  aimed at the revitalization of languages in the process of obsolescence and extinction, and to programs for stimulating language awareness and language cult. Although practical work and immediate political interventions remain the most urgent tasks, there is also need for a theoretical discussion on the value of language maintenance and preservation. It is important to define adequately the basic concepts to be used in discussions, as well as in scholarly and "bureaucratic" writings in the field of language endangerment. The aim of the present paper has been to clarify the concepts of 'language obsolescence' and 'language death', with an eye at offering a general characterization and typology of both phenomena. Accurate information on the causes and contextual factors involved in language obsolescence and language death can help to elaborate a theoretically coherent frame for construing open-minded language policies and for arousing a widespread feeling of respect for the linguistic rights of speech communities, however small and unprotected they may be.

scholarly journals Metaphors of language: the Vepsian ecology challenges an international paradigm

2015 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 111-137
Author(s):  
Laura Siragusa
Keyword(s):  
Heritage Language ◽  
Language Death ◽  
Political Factors ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
Communicative Practices ◽  
Language Endangerment ◽  
Language And Culture ◽  
Language Ecology ◽  
The Republic ◽  
North Western

At present Veps, a Finno-Ugric minority in north-western Russia, live in three different administrative regions, i.e., the Republic of Karelia, and the Leningrad and Vologda Oblasts. Due to several socio-economic and political factors Veps have experienced a drastic change in their communicative practices and ways of speaking in the last century. Indeed, Vepsian heritage language is now classified as severely endangered by UNESCO. Since perestroika a group of Vepsian activists working in Petrozavodsk (Republic of Karelia) has been promoting Vepsian language and culture. This paper aims to challenge an international rhetoric around language endangerment and language death through an analysis of Vepsian language ecology and revitalisation. Vepsian ontologies and communicative practices do not always match detached metaphors of language, which view them as separate entities and often in competition with each other. The efforts to promote the language and how these are discussed among the policy-makers and Vepsian activists also do not concur with such a drastic terminology as death and endangerment. Therefore, this paper aims to bring to the surface local ontologies and worldviews in order to query the paradigms around language shift and language death that dominate worldwide academic and political discourse.

scholarly journals Scholarship and Language Revival: Language Ideologies in Corpus Development for Revived Manx

2017 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 97-118
Author(s):  
Christopher Lewin
Keyword(s):  
Language Ideologies ◽  
The Body ◽  
Language Death ◽  
The Past ◽  
Language Revival ◽  
Language And Literature ◽  
Revival Movement ◽  
Traditional Language ◽  
Native Resources

Abstract In this article the role of different ideological viewpoints concerning corpus development within the Manx revival movement in the second half of the twentieth century is explored. In particular, the work of two prominent figures is examined: the Celtic scholar Robert L. Thomson, who published extensively especially on Manx language and literature, and also contributed to the revival, particularly as editor of several pedagogical resources and as a member of the translation committee Coonceil ny Gaelgey, and Douglas Fargher, a tireless activist and compiler of an English-Manx Dictionary (1979). Broadly speaking, Thomson was of a more preservationist bent, cautious in adapting the native resources of the language and wary of straying too far from attested usage of the traditional language, while Fargher was more radical and open especially to borrowing from Irish and Scottish sources. Both were concerned, in somewhat different ways, to remove perceived impurities or corruptions from the language, and were influenced by the assumptions of existing scholarship. A close reading of the work of these scholar-activists sheds light on the tensions within the revival movement regarding its response to the trauma of language death and the questions of legitimacy and authenticity in the revived variety. Particular space is devoted to an analysis of the preface of Fargher’s dictionary, as well as certain features of the body of the work itself, since this volume is probably the most widely consulted guide to the use of the language today. Finally, it is argued that the Manx language movement today would benefit from a reassessment and discussion of the ideological currents of the past and present, and a judicious evaluation of both the strengths and weaknesses of existing reference works.

scholarly journals Sociolinguistic vitality of Manx after extreme language shift: authenticity without traditional native speakers

2015 ◽  
Vol 2015 (231) ◽  
pp. 45-62 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tadhg Ó hIfearnáin
Keyword(s):  
Native Speakers ◽  
Language Shift ◽  
Indigenous Language ◽  
Language Community ◽  
Language Death ◽  
Language Endangerment ◽  
Alternative Models ◽  
Traditional Language

Abstract This article draws on sociolinguistic fieldwork among speakers of one of Europe's smallest indigenous language communities, a speaker group which persists after the loss of all of its “traditional speakers” within living memory. The extreme language shift experienced by Manx has not led to loss of the language as a spoken and literary medium due to the efforts of significant numbers of language activists and enthusiasts over several generations, from before the loss of the traditional language community to the present. Their actions have resulted in significant linguistic institutionalisation and a rapidly expanding number of speakers of various abilities, some of whom form a new “speaker community”. It discusses the constructions of linguistic authenticity and alternative models for the revival speaker, showing how core groups of speakers have been bestowed with authenticity by the wider non-speaker population, for whom linguists' interest in language endangerment and language death are not primary concerns. The article shows how speakers appropriate and are accorded forms of authority and legitimacy in the absence of traditional native speakers.

scholarly journals Translating German philosophy into English: The case of Martin Heidegger

2021 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 31
Author(s):  
Martin Arndt
Keyword(s):  
English Language ◽  
Linguistic Diversity ◽  
Language Loss ◽  
Pop Music ◽  
Language Death ◽  
Language Endangerment ◽  
Library Research ◽  
German Philosopher ◽  
Inherent Problem ◽  
New Perspective

Language endangerment and language loss have become of focal interest for linguists and cultural anthropologists who bemoan the loss of linguistic diversity. The coinage of the term “linguicide” indicates the inherent problem that is related to mondialisation, universalization, and urbanization, which in itself is a highly controversial subject. The recent discoveries of Martin Heidegger’s black notebooks cast a new perspective on his work, revealing his revulsion at universalist ideologies and his antimodernism – and, most fatefully, his antisemitism: Jews who are to him the incarnation of rootlessness, distance from the soil, and thus subversion. Heidegger was born in a rural provincial German – and for many remained so, walking in the countryside, hating TV, airplanes, pop music, and processed food that all conspire to distract us from the basic wondrous nature of Being, overwhelming us with information, killing silence, and never leaving us alone, and thus keep us away from the confrontation with “das Nichts” (the Nothing), which lies on the other side of Being, that is, however, unknown to the chatter (das Gerede), which can be perceived in the newspapers, on TV and in the cities Heidegger hated to spend time in. Although he was a Nazi to the end, this does not mean that nothing can be learned from him or problems connected to his work. This library research deals with the complexity of translating this German philosopher into the English language. It draws not only on typical examples from Heidegger’s path-breaking philosophical work Sein und Zeit and presents attempts at translating it, but also points out their shortcomings and drawbacks. Additionally, it presents solutions to the problems that emerge from Heidegger’s idiosyncratic language. Generally speaking, it reveals the almost unbridgeable language barriers that can only be overcome at the expense of depth and authenticity. Homogenization can be seen as a way of leveling down ideas and concepts that end in language death.

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