Vanishing Voices The Extinction of the World's Languages

by Nettle, Daniel; Romaine, Suzanne

• ISBN13: 9780195152463
• ISBN10: 0195152468
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2002-05-16
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

Few people know that nearly 100 native languages once spoken in what isnow California are near extinction, or that most of Australia's 250 aboriginallanguages have vanished. In fact, at least half of the world's languages maydie out in the next century. What has happened to these voices? Should we bealarmed about the disappearance of linguistic diversity?The authors of Vanishing Voices assert that this trend is far more thansimply disturbing. Making explicit the link between language survival andenvironmental issues, they argue that the extinction of languages is part of thelarger picture of near-total collapse of the worldwide ecosystem. Indeed, theauthors contend that the struggle to preserve precious environmentalresources-such as the rainforest-cannot be separated from the struggle tomaintain diverse cultures, and that the causes of language death, like that ofecological destruction, lie at the intersection of ecology and politics.And while Nettle and Romaine defend the world's endangered languages,they also pay homage to the last speakers of dying tongues, such as RedThundercloud, a Native American in South Carolina, Ned Mandrell, with whom theManx language passed away in 1974, and Arthur Bennett, an Australian, the lastperson to know more than a few words of Mbabaram.In our languages lies the accumulated knowledge of humanity. Indeed, eachlanguage is a unique window on experience. Vanishing Voices is a call topreserve this resource, before it is too late.

Author Biography

Daniel Nettle is the author The Fyem Language of Northern Nigeria and Linguistic Diversity (OUP). Suzanne Romaine is Merton Professor of English Language at the University of Oxford and is the author of Language in Society: An Introduction to Sociolinguistics (OUP). Vanishing Voices was awarded the 2001 Book of the Year Award from the British Association of Applied Linguistics.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations	vii
Preface	ix
Where Have All the Languages Gone?	1	(25)
Why and how are languages dying?	5	(2)
Where and when are languages at risk?	7	(3)
Why worry about languages dying?	10	(13)
What can be done?	23	(3)
A World of Diversity	26	(24)
How many languages are there and where are they spoken?	27	(6)
Hotbeds of linguistic diversity	33	(6)
Endangerment: the extent of the threat	39	(2)
Biolinguistic diversity: some correlations between the linguistic and biological worlds	41	(9)
Lost Words/Lost Worlds	50	(28)
Sudden versus gradual death	51	(2)
What happens in gradual death?	53	(3)
What is being lost 1: a rose by any other name?	56	(6)
What is being lost 2: what's mine is mine?	62	(4)
What is being lost 3: women, fire, and dangerous things	66	(3)
Lost languages, lost knowledge	69	(9)
The Ecology of Language	78	(21)
Babel in paradise: Papua New Guinea	80	(4)
Why are there so many languages?	84	(6)
The ways languages die	90	(7)
What has changed	97	(2)
The Biological Wave	99	(27)
The Paleolithic world system	101	(3)
The Neolithic revolution	104	(7)
Different trajectories after the Neolithic	111	(3)
The Neolithic aftershock	114	(10)
The untouched world	124	(2)
The Economic Wave	126	(24)
The rise to dominance	128	(3)
Economic takeoff	131	(2)
First casualties: the Celtic languages	133	(10)
The spread to the developing world	143	(4)
Double dangers	147	(3)
Why Something Should Be Done	150	(26)
Why bother?	153	(1)
Making choices	154	(1)
Language, development, and sustainability	155	(11)
Indigenous knowledge systems	166	(6)
Language rights and human rights	172	(4)
Sustainable Futures	176	(29)
Bottom-up approaches to language maintenance: Some case studies	177	(9)
Settling for less, but getting more?	186	(4)
Who's afraid of bilingualism?	190	(3)
Living without a heart	193	(6)
Planning for survival: languages as natural resources	199	(1)
Some top-down strategies	200	(5)
References and Further Reading	205	(10)
Bibliography	215	(12)
Index	227