Language Endangerment and Language Maintenance: An Active Approach

by Bradley,David; Bradley,David

• ISBN13: 9780700714568
• ISBN10: 0700714561
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2002-08-02
• Publisher: RoutledgeCurzon

Summary

Language endangerment is a fundamental issue for humanity. What rights do minority communities have concerning their languages? How does each language conceptualize the world differently? How much knowledge about the world and a local ecosystem is lost when a language disappears? What is the process involved and how can insights about this process contribute to linguistic theory? What typological insights will be lost if undescribed languages disappear before their unique structural properties are known? How can language shift be stopped or reversed?

Table of Contents

Table of Figures, Maps and Tables	vii
Introduction	xi
Language Attitudes: the key factor in language maintenance	1	(10)
David Bradley
Strategies for Language Maintenance and Revival	11	(13)
Stephen A. Wurm
Traditional Multilingualism and Language Endangerment	24	(10)
Alexandra Y. Aikhenvald
Why One Cannot Preserve Languages (but can preserve language ecologies)	34	(6)
Peter Muhlhausler
Irish and Finland Swedish	40	(19)
Anders Ahlqvist
Working Together to Strengthen Sm'algyax (Tsimshian Nation, British Columbia, Canada)	59	(18)
Tonya Stebbins
Language Policy and Language Maintenance: Yi in China	77	(21)
David Bradley
Maya Bradley
Tai Languages of Assam, a progress report --- Does anything remain of the Tai Ahom language?	98	(16)
Stephen Morey
The Impact of Malay on Taba: a type of incipient language death or incipient death of a language type?	114	(30)
John Bowden
Language Obsolescence: Progress or Decay? The emergence of new grammatical categories in `language death'	144	(12)
Alexandra Y. Aikhenvald
Reclaiming Languages in Aboriginal Victoria	156	(11)
Barry Blake
A Language Plan for Norfolk Island	167	(15)
Peter Muhlhausler
Language Maintenance and Survival in East Timor: all change now? Winners and losers	182	(21)
John Hajek
Steel Tyres or Rubber Tyres --- Maintenance or Loss: Pennsylvania German in the ``horse and buggy'' communities of Ontario	203	(27)
Kate Burridge
Language Maintenance at the Micro Level: Hmong ex-refugee communities	230	(27)
Christina Eira
Community Initiatives towards Language Renewal among Moluccan Migrants in the Netherlands	257	(15)
Margaret Florey
Concealment, Maintenance and Renaissance: language and ethnicity in the Moluccan community in the Netherlands	272	(38)
Aone van Engelenhoven
Extinction in Whose Terms? Which parts of a language constitute a target for language maintenance programmes?	310	(19)
Nicholas Thieberger
Dictionaries and Endangered Languages	329	(19)
Miriam Corris
Christopher Manning
Susan Poetsch
Jane Simpson
Conclusion: Resources for Language Maintenance	348	(6)
David Bradley
Maya Bradley
Contributors	354