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 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.

What Are We Trying to Preserve? Diversity, Change, and Ideology at the Edge of the Cameroonian Grassfields

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pierpaolo Di Carlo ◽  
Jeff Good
Keyword(s):  
Language Ideologies ◽  
Linguistic Diversity ◽  
Extreme Case ◽  
Language Loss ◽  
Research Projects ◽  
Language Endangerment ◽  
Local Language ◽  
Key Aspects

Losses associated with language endangerment need not be restricted to individual language systems but can also involve the disappearance of distinctive language ecologies. This chapter explores the language dynamics of the Lower Fungom region of Northwest Cameroon, which offers an extreme case of linguistic diversity, from an areal and ethnographically informed perspective. Key aspects of local language ideologies are explored in detail, and it is argued that in this area languages symbolize relatively ephemeral political formations and, hence, should not be taken as reflections of deeply rooted historical identities. This conclusion has significance both regarding how research projects in the area should be structured as well as for what it might mean to ‘preserve’ the languages of a region that historically appears to have been characterized by frequent language loss and emergence, conditioned by changes in territorial and political configurations.

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 The impact of colonisation on te reo Māori: A critical review of the State education system

Te Kaharoa ◽  
2011 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Rachael Ka'ai-Mahuta
Keyword(s):  
New Zealand ◽  
Education System ◽  
Intelligence Testing ◽  
The State ◽  
Language Loss ◽  
Language Death ◽  
State Education ◽  
The Status ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Impact

By 1979, merely 139 years after the signing of Te Tiriti o Waitangi (The Treaty of Waitangi), the loss of te reo Māori was so great that it was believed it would suffer language death (Walker 1990: 147-148). This can be attributed to colonisation and the State policy of assimilation which eroded the status of the language. The mechanism of the Government’s agenda of assimilation and language domination was the State education system. This was, therefore, the primary cause of Māori language loss. In some cases the legislation regarding the State education system can be directly linked to language loss. However, in many cases the education system has negatively affected te reo Māori indirectly through aspects of Eurocentric education. These include assimilation, cultural invasion, cultural subordination, language domination, hegemony, the curriculum, class structures, racism, meritocracy, intelligence testing, and negative teacher expectations.   In the study of Māori language decline one must critically review the New Zealand State education system, including a discussion of the key events and legislation in the history of Pākehā colonisation and assimilation in Aotearoa/New Zealand. This will form the chronological map of the deterioration of the status of the Māori language.

Language Shift

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lenore A. Grenoble
Keyword(s):  
Language Maintenance ◽  
Language Shift ◽  
Minority Language ◽  
Minority Languages ◽  
Language Loss ◽  
Language Attrition ◽  
Dominant Group ◽  
Language Endangerment ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
The Individual

Language shift occurs when a community of users replaces one language by another, or “shifts” to that other language. Although language shift can and does occur at the level of the individual speaker, it is shift at the level of an entire community that is associated with widespread language replacement and loss. Shift is a particular kind of language loss, and differs from language attrition, which involves the loss of a language over an individual’s lifetime, often the result of aging or of language replacement (as in shift). Both language shift and attrition are in contrast to language maintenance, the continuing use of a language. Language maintenance and revitalization programs are responses to language shift, and are undertaken by communites who perceive that their language is threatened by a decrease in usage and under threat of loss. Language shift is widespread and can be found with majority- or minority-language populations. It is often associated with immigrant groups who take up the majority language of their new territory, leaving behind the language of their homeland. For minority-language speaker communities, language shift is generally the result of a combination of factors, in particular colonization. A nexus of factors—historical, political, social, and economic—often provides the impetus for a community to ceasing speaking their ancestral language, replacing it with the language of the majority, and usually politically dominant, group. Language shift is thus a social issue, and often coupled with other indicators of social distress. Language endangerment is the result of language shift, and in fact shift is its most widespread cause.Since the 1960s there has been ever-increasing interest across speaker communities and linguists to work to provide opportunities to learn and use minority languages to offset shift, and to document speakers in communities under the threat of shift.

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 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.

scholarly journals What happens in language loss?

2020 ◽  
Vol 2020 (65) ◽  
Author(s):  
Riho Grünthal
Keyword(s):  
Language Loss ◽  
Language Death

Besprechung Kehayov, Petar. 2017. The fate of mood and modality in language death. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter. 385 pp.

Language Endangerment in Africa

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tucker Childs
Keyword(s):  
Linguistic Diversity ◽  
Climatic Factors ◽  
Government Policies ◽  
Language Loss ◽  
Language Diversity ◽  
Language Endangerment ◽  
African Languages ◽  
World Languages ◽  
European Languages ◽  
Concomitant Reduction

As elsewhere in the world, languages in Africa are endangered. The estimates for language loss on a world scale likely hold for Africa as well. Although the particular group of factors at work in Africa may be unique, they come from a well-established inventory familiar elsewhere. The forces reducing African language diversity come from the combination of a set of macro socioeconomic factors and historical events, such as colonization and globalization, coupled with local factors such as military conquest and misguided government policies. Simple demographic factors, such as number of speakers, are also important: the less widely spoken languages are more severely threatened than are those spoken more widely. The shift from African languages is to both European languages and the more widely spoken languages on the continent. Shifts also occur to localized or appropriated versions of the two. Climatic factors, most notably global warming, have played and will continue to play a role as well; the correlation between biological and linguistic diversity has often been remarked. For example, with the growth of plantation economies and the destruction of rain forests, there is a concomitant reduction in linguistic diversity.

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