Language in Contact, Part 2

Question 1

language death

Answer 1

when a language is no longer used

Question 2

What does the distribution of languages reveal?

Answer 2

The distribution is very unequal

Most of the population speaks at least one of 347 languages
The remaining 95% of languages are spoken by 6% of the opulation - most of these languages are endangered

Question 3

Language endangerment case study: North America

Answer 3

Before european invasion: about 300 languages spoken
Today: 175 native american languages
Of these 175, 55 have less than 5 speakers (virtually extinct)
100 are endangered

e.g. Wukchumni and Ngukurr (One last speaker)

Question 4

Case study of language endangerment: Australia

Answer 4

About 500 language before european invasion
Today: 200 native languages survive, all are endangered
Only 20 are spoken by children

Question 5

What precedes language death?

Answer 5

preceded by language shift

Question 6

Language Shift

Answer 6

a process when a language in a community changes from one to another

Question 7

Reasons to care about langauge diversity

Answer 7

• Because we need diversity
• Language expresses identity
• Languages are repositories of history
• Languages contribute to the sum of human knowledge
• Language is interesting in themselves

Question 8

Language as respositories if hisotory

Answer 8

The lexicon can give us an idea of what groups interacted with each other in the past
For many languages, histories are only recorded only in spoken language

Question 9

Language as the sum of human knowledge

Answer 9

People around the world have a profound awareness of the flora and fauna, rocks, soils, climate cycles, etc of their environment

Question 10

Causes of language death

Answer 10

1. Factors that put people in physical danger (natural disasters, disease, economic exploitation, political conflict)
2. Factors that change people’s culture

Question 11

Factors that change people’s culture

Answer 11

1. Voluntary assimilation
2. Forced assimilation
3. Military dominance
4. Urbanization
5. Media
6. Bilingualism

Question 12

Voluntary assimilation

Answer 12

Happens in stages: minority language speakers feel pressure to speak dominant language, results in emerging bilingualism in children, younger generation shifts towards dominant language, Often results in shame of using the minority language and self-conscious semilingualism (passive understanding when spoken to in the language but don’t actually use it), leads to dominant language monolingualism

Can occur only one generation later

Question 13

Forced assmiliation

Answer 13

In the USA, Canada, and Australia there were boarding schools that forced Native American to assimilate

Question 14

What can we do to prevent language death of shift?

Answer 14

1. Understand factors that affect language shift in the first place
2. Accept the idea of linguistic diversity in the dominant culture
3. The more domains a minority language is used in, the more chances there is to maintain it
4. Large enough community: the community is able to isolate itself from the influences of the majority (E.g. Pennsylvania dutch)
5. Community has a say in the educational system (Can lead to creation of bilingual educational materials)
6. Should have access to electronic technology (can speak the language with people in the internet)

Question 15

Factors that effect language shift

Answer 15

1. Attitudes of other members of the dominant community
2. Patterns of language use: socioeconomic factors (e.g. jobs)
3. Demographic factors
4. Improved roads, buses, TVs, telephone, and internet
5. Intermarriage (Children likely grow up speaking the dominant language)
6. Attitudes to the minority language by the speakers themself - language shifts are faster in communities where the ethnic language is not highly valued
7. Lack of say in educational system
8. Lack of technology where people can’t communicate the language with other speakers