#endangered languages
The most endangered languages in the world
Mapped: the most endangered languages in the world right now
Data are from the excellent Endangered Languages Project:
Hi All,
Sorry that my posts have been so sporadic these past few months, but it’s been death by blessings over here at the Linguist Linguine, if blessings were conference presentations I guess? I’ve just gotten back from TX for SALSA XXVI and am about to wade into the scary pools of finals, so please forgive my quiet for a bit. In the meantime, here’s an interesting article about WikiTongues, a project to save disappearing languages, especially as we may lose 500 in the next 5 years.
LL Recipe Comparison:
This article reminds me of the recipe for Romano Chicken with Lemon Garlic Pasta:
Much like the National Geographic article, this recipe contains hidden treasures in its advice on how to bread chicken for a tasty and zesty dish. While losing the world’s languages may leave you bitter, you’ll find the lemon in this savory meal perfect for your pasta needs. Good Cooking!
MWV 4/24/18
Happy St. Pádraig day to my anglophone followers. One of the sorrows of history is the death of languages, whether through capitalism/colonialism, genocide, or natural disaster (though the first two are far more common than the last). I’m too tired to truly reflect on the global scale of tragedy that comes with severing people from their language (and culture), so I will focus only on Celtic culture and language. Both Irish and Socttish Gaelic are endangered languages, arguably because of English colonization of the British Isles. Native languages of the country we call France are also in danger of dying from similar forces, some of which have celtic roots as well. Native languages like Irish, Welsh, and Scottish Gaelic are not just “spicy english” or funny spellings, they are the remnants of a conquered people of England. You can see the scale and severity of endangerment at https://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2011/apr/15/language-extinct-endangered
Linguist K. David Harrison of Swarthmore College (USA) says,
”The decision to give up one language or to abandon a language is not usually a free decision. It’s often coerced by politics, by market forces, by the educational system in a country, by a larger, more dominant group telling them that their language is backwards and obsolete and worthless.“
The key players in language revitalization are the 5- and 6-year-olds in the communities, Harrison says.
“They’re like little barometers of social prestige, and they understand that if two languages are spoken in their environment, and one of them is more highly valued, they will gravitate toward that more highly valued language,” he says. “So the key to saving a language is to create prestige of the language in the eyes of the very youngest speakers. The way you do that is to put it in a high-tech medium — we create, for example, talking dictionaries. People can do creative things like producing hip-hop or poetry in the language.”
source: NPR article “In The Search For ‘Last Speakers,’ A Great Discovery“
hey lingblr/langblr! did you know Wikitongues is taking applications (due Jan 23rd) for a language revitalization cohort starting in April 2022? it’s a really cool opportunity from a nonprofit that’s been doing awesome language documentation work for the last couple years. if you’re interested or know someone who might be, here’s the link to apply:
https://wikitongues.org/language-revitalization-accelerator/
please reblog and help share this with potential language activists!
(PS applicants must have a functional level of english but the team can support spanish speakers too!)
First round: August 5 though 11, 2019
The purpose of the Endangered Languages Challenge is to raise awareness of endangered / moribund or recently extinct languages.
The challenge for the lingblr and langblr community is to learn and write about the languages not about their vocabulary or some interesting grammatical features.
Rules:
- No exotification.
We wouldn’t want this to drift off into something like “this language is worth saving because it does X”.- Stick to sociolinguistics.
Typology and phonology are for the Linguistic Diversity Challenges.- Frequency.
Post at least once a day for at least six of the seven days of the challenge.- Diversity.
Try to post on languages from different families and geographical areas. Avoid eurocentrism.- Visibility.
Please use the following two tags:
#endangered-languagesand#endangeredlanguageschallengeSome guiding questions:
- name(s) of the language
What is/are the language’s name(s) for itself, the name(s) used in linguistic literature, the English name(s)?- genealogical affiliation
Which linguistic family does the language belong to? Notable relatives?- location of the language
Where is it spoken? Is there a diaspora community? What are its neighboring languages?- number of speakers
how many speakers (native, L1) are there? how is the prognosis for future transmission to the next generation(s)?- endangerment situation
Why is the language endangered? Who and what caused the language and speaker community to be marginalized or suppressed? When and why did people stop teaching it to their children? Which domains has the language been removed from? Which factors mitigate or aggravate the language’s situation nowadays? Are there media or publications in the language?- speaker community
How did the speech community react to the threat and marginalization politically, artistically, socially, economically, etc.? Are there maintenance / revitalization efforts?- language breakdown
Is the language still fully functional or does it show signs of structural collapse?- official / legal status
Does the language have any kind of recognition, as official or minority language? Is it taught in primary to tertiary education? Is it legal to speak the language in its home country? When or where may the language (not) freely be spoken?- documentation status
Is there a (sketch) grammar? A dictionary? Teaching materials? A (multimodal) corpus? Were or are there documentation efforts?Possible ressources
- http://www.language-archives.org/
- http://www.unesco.org/languages-atlas/
- https://glottolog.org/
- http://www.glottopedia.org/index.php/Most_widely_spoken_languages
- http://www.olestig.dk/endangered-languages/films.html
- https://www.dnathan.com/VL/
- https://aiatsis.gov.au/
- http://www.endangeredlanguages.com/
- https://www.ogmios.org/
- http://www.endangeredlanguagefund.org/
- http://gbs.uni-koeln.de/wordpress/
- http://www.smo.uhi.ac.uk/saoghal/mion-chanain/en/
- https://www.yourdictionary.com/elr/index.html
- https://linguistlist.org/issues/16/16-2815.html
- https://scholarspace.manoa.hawaii.edu/bitstream/10125/4478/hammarstrom.pdf
- https://www.researchgate.net/project/endangered-languages-2
tagging and challenging:@allthingslinguistic,@babbelcause,@bilabialfricative,@blackgrad,@camlangsci,@containslanguage,@culmaer,@determinerd,@dystonia-linguist,@endangeredlanguagechallenge,@floppergostic, @frislander,@gacorley,@gekbarna,@globalvoices,@havermelk,@house-carpenter,@humanswhoreadgrammars,@injerabae,@jstor,@kelseythelinguist,@ladyofthesilent,@languagemoon,@languageoficeandfire,@languagesandshootingstars,@languagesaroundtheglobe,@large-angry-ground-squirrel,@laserhedvig,@learninglinguist,@linguastic,@linguist-breakaribecca,@linguisticmaps,@linguisticsyall,@linguistlinguine,@lingumaniac,@little-linguist-on-the-prairie,@maskedlinguist,@missalsfromiram,@mutedtongues,@oupacademic,@parksanddeserts,@phonaesthemes,@possessivesuffix,@practicingtheliberalarts,@putawaytheglobe,@selchieproductions,@siancore,@smithsonianlibraries,@smithsonianmag,@snaplanguage,@sociolingarticles,@something-called-fieldwork,@speak-to-survive,@sprachgefuehle,@superlinguo,@theamateurlinguist,@tulunnguaq,@vergi1ius,@voicedpharyngealfricative, @vocalfriespod, @yeli-renrong