|
|
Joined: Mar 2001
Posts: 4,189
Carpal Tunnel
|
OP
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Mar 2001
Posts: 4,189 |
There was a fascinating AP article in our local paper today about the impending extinction of many of the world's current languages. Of the world's 6,800 languages, it says, half to 90% could be extinct by the end of the century! It explains that one reason is that half of all existing languages are spoken by fewer than 2,500 people, and that languages need at least 100,000 speakers to pass from generation to generation. They go on to mention some obscure tongues from Siberia (Udihe, 100 speakers), Amazon jungle (Arikapu, 6 speakers), and Alaska (Eyad, 1 speaker); and, also, that such well-known languages as Navajo, Maori, and Cornish are teetering on the brink. Ironically, in Cornish one of their proudest sayings is "Ne na vyn cows Sawsnak" (I will not speak English). In 1974, Manx, a language from the Isle of Man in the Irish Sea disappeared with the death of its last speaker, according to the story. (If anyone has more background to offer about this isolated tongue from the British Isles I'd be intrigued to hear more, please!) And, it also says, that in 1992 a Turkish farmer's passing marked the end of Ubykh, a language from the Caucasus region with the most consonants on record, 81. And it says that eight countries account for more than half of all the languages: (in order) Papua New Guinea, Indonesia, Nigeria, India, Mexico, Cameroon, Australia, and Brazil. They conclude by saying that it's not that the extinction of languages is anything new, thousands have already disappeared, but that "the distinguishing thing is it's happening at such an alarming rate right now." This from Megan Crowhurst, chairwoman of The Linguistic Society of America's (so why isn't she on this Board?  ) endangered languages committee. The article cites war, genocide, natural disasters, adoption of more dominant languages, and government bans as all contributing to these languages' demise. Discussion?........
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Aug 2000
Posts: 3,409
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Aug 2000
Posts: 3,409 |
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 315
enthusiast
|
|
enthusiast
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 315 |
Alaska (Eyad, 1 speaker)
speaking just alone?
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: May 2001
Posts: 53
journeyman
|
|
journeyman
Joined: May 2001
Posts: 53 |
My grandfather was a Professor of Linguistics and traveled through the world recording languages, trying to write them down before they disappeared. He could speak over 14 languages. He created the first dictionary for an African tribal language (the name of which escapes me at the moment). He was my idol. We need more people like this to at least record languages even if they cannot be saved from dying out. The cultural information contained within a language is immense and the world would be a pretty boring place without the diversity of many languages.
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 1,156
old hand
|
|
old hand
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 1,156 |
I read somewhere that my Dad's first language (Sardinian) is also "endangered". The island of Sardinia, small though it is, has several regional variations of Sardinian, so that a person from the north of Sardinia may understand a person from the south, but they have different ways of pronouncing certain sounds. It's one of those things I wish I'd learned more of - I can more or less follow a conversation in Sardinian but I can't put together a sentence - and it's got a beautiful sound to listen to! One of my favourite things to do is to listen to my dad on the phone with his sister, and just bask in the sound of the language.  In Labrador, the Innu are trying to keep their language alive with a project where a few elders of the group are spending a lot of time with three babies, to try and teach them the language. Talk about pressure on those little ones! They will be responsible for carrying the language to future generations!
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 218
enthusiast
|
|
enthusiast
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 218 |
I'm saddened by the loss or extinction of anything from this earth. Indeed, I have little hope that things will get any better. As every liguist knows, language differentiation exists because of separation. What separates me from my brothers in Britain or my sisters in New Zealand? I type words in English, and they respond in English, all within a minute.
Thos languages will survive if we construct some Pyrenees and Alps Mountains around our gobalizing businesses. In America, people are always trying to be "different" but homogenization is the real movement.
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 218
enthusiast
|
|
enthusiast
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 218 |
I'm saddened by the loss or extinction of anything from this earth. Indeed, I have little hope that things will get any better. As every liguist knows, language differentiation exists because of separation. What separates me from my brothers in Britain or my sisters in New Zealand? I type words in English, and they respond in English, all within a minute.
Thos languages will survive if we construct some Pyrenees and Alps Mountains around our gobalizing businesses. In America, people are always trying to be "different" but homogenization is the real movement. Long live sign languages. I don't think they are going anywhere (unless there is a cure for deafness (unlikely anytime soon) and Deaf people actually decide they want to speak (even more unlikely)).
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Sep 2000
Posts: 4,757
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Sep 2000
Posts: 4,757 |
To anyone interested in this area of thought, I can warmly reccomend David Crystal's book on the subject, entitled (I think) Language Death. He also has sections of information on these sometimes conflicting trends in the excellent Encyclopaedia mentioned elsewhere hi, E!
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 328
enthusiast
|
|
enthusiast
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 328 |
http://www.msnbc.com/news/589114.asp?bt=prgyCheck out the Manx sound clips attached to the article. (Look in the Disappearing Diversity paragraph, under the interactive map)
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 1,819
Pooh-Bah
|
|
Pooh-Bah
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 1,819 |
Are there any projects to make recordings of these languages to preserve them? It wouldn't be too hard to sit down with speakers and record conversations and put them onto compact discs. I realize that this is not as important as saving the language from extinction, but it would be worthwhile.
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 13,803
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 13,803 |
I realize that this is not as important as saving the language from extinction
Hearing the sounds of a language is a very different thing from knowing the structure, the grammar of a language, knowing the way a language interprets reality. Without living native speakers a language is lost forever.
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Mar 2001
Posts: 4,189
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
OP
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Mar 2001
Posts: 4,189 |
Thanks for the link, Rapunzel! Good to be able to read the entire article and charts! It also helps to confirm how the copy-editors of the local rag in this area butcher their stories, to the decades-long disdain of folks in this region (the rag shall be left unnamed) The nuance of language never ceases to amaze me! My mother spoke what she called "Slovak," as did her parents and most of their first-generation immigrant families. But it's really a dialect of Carpatho-Russian Slavic, since they came from northern Austria-Hungary from villages in the Carpathian Mountains. An exchange student from Slovakia that stayed with my sister's family could understand some of my Mother's tongue, and the Russian student workers that spend the summers here can understand only some of it. Unfortunately, though I know a handful of words, my Mother kept it to herself, mostly, so she could converse with her sister without anyone else knowing what they were saying!...on the phone or in person!  So, as you can see, sometimes even personal reasons contribute to this loss of knowledge.
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 1,289
veteran
|
|
veteran
Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 1,289 |
Re Cornish
I read somewhere, years ago, that the last Cornish speaker was a lady who died around 1810 and that she was visited on her deathbed by language scholars eager to speak with her and take notes on the language while they still could. Maybe the reports of the death of that language were premature, like Mark Twain's obit.
Anyway, it is sad, to me at least, that the rich variety of language is being impoverished. But, as pointed out by others, a language has to be spoken by a significant number of people to be a living, viable language. Efforts to preserve a language [Latin comes to mind] like a fly in amber are never very successful. And to my knowledge, there is only one dead language that has been successfully resuscitated, that being Hebrew.
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Aug 2000
Posts: 3,409
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Aug 2000
Posts: 3,409 |
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Oct 2000
Posts: 5,400
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Oct 2000
Posts: 5,400 |
Re: samples of language on a CD...
but even if they did--there are some sounds, that unless one is expossed to them at an early age-- one never learns to hear them-- the most famous for english speakers is R/L-- unless learned early, most japanese can not hear that these letters represent different sounds..
My own sister has the problem.. her name is Tsuyuki-- which is not the same as Suyuki.. but it "sounds the same to her" -- so just as we chuckle over air line stewards saying "have a nice fright!" she does the same in japanese to her own name!
a language needs children-- to hear the sounds.. and if they don't hear them at a critical point...
Steve Pinker points out, that children known to be deaf at an early age, (before 1 year old) and then "spoken" to in sign, "speak" sign language at almost the same rate as "verbal language" children..
and children with normal hearing-- spoken to in sign-- by deaf parents, are a little slow with verbal skills, but the difference is gone by age 5-- they learned language.. (sign language) and have "primed their brains" for language.. and when with verbal children, quickly pick up the spoken language...
Unless children are listening to the CD's, and before the age of 2-- the language dies..
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 618
addict
|
|
addict
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 618 |
Cornish is not yet dead. My great-grandmother (d 1950ish) spoke fluent Cornish, and my grandmother retains some sayings, though not much more than that. There is a large Cornish community in South Australia, and indeed Australia as a whole, descended from Cornish miners who came to Australia in the 1800's.
There are also numerous language preservation projects being established in Australia to save the languages of the original inhabitants of our country, the Aboriginal people, of who well over 100 languages and dialects exist(ed).
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Feb 2001
Posts: 609
addict
|
|
addict
Joined: Feb 2001
Posts: 609 |
is R/L-- unless learned early, most japanese can not hear that these letters represent different sounds..
and because teh Japanese pronounce them both as a sound halfway between R and L, they both are heard as incorrect by the English ear. For some reason, instead of adjusting to the correct sound, the English ear seems to adjust it even further the wrong way, hearing "R" for "L" and "L" for "R". But Helen, did you find, as I did, that after frequent exposure to the phenomenon, my ears (or the ear bit of my brain) adjusted the sound so I was no longer hearing the wrong words?
Rod
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 218
enthusiast
|
|
enthusiast
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 218 |
children with normal hearing-- spoken to in sign-- by deaf parents, are a little slow with verbal skills, but the difference is gone by age 5-- they learned language.. (sign language) and have "primed their brains" for language.. and when with verbal children, quickly pick up the spoken language...
It is well-documented that infants in signing homes are able to produce signs long before infants in speaking homes can talk. My son (who turns one next week) had seven signs in his vocabulary at 6 months and began signing two word sentences at 10 months. That they get "language" is clear, and because they develop motor skills before those tough larynx skills, they can produce language a bit earlier.
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Mar 2001
Posts: 508
addict
|
|
addict
Joined: Mar 2001
Posts: 508 |
Mother kept it to herself, mostly, so she could converse with her sister without anyone else knowing what they were saying!...on the phone or in person!
My parents did the same with Polish, WO'N. They wanted to be able to talk privately in front of the kids! There seems to be a different mentality today, with more people recognizing the value of multilingualism (except of course for my own kids, who were exposed to weekly Spanish lessons at school starting in kindergarten, continued the language through high school and were supremely relieved to test out of the language requirement in college!).
|
|
|
|
Forums16
Topics13,913
Posts229,317
Members9,182
| |
Most Online3,341
Dec 9th, 2011
|
|
|
0 members (),
688
guests, and
1
robot. |
|
Key:
Admin,
Global Mod,
Mod
|
|
|
|
