ANT206H5 Lecture Notes - Lecture 11: Linguistic Imperialism, Linguistic Relativity, The Linguists
Document Summary
95% have fewer than one million native speakers. When the speakers die, the language dies with them: speakers killed through human action, colonialism: violence or disease, gradual (common, less dominant language (economically, politically, socially) is avoided (remember linguistic capital?) A particular language may just be more socially valuable. So, as time goes on, knowledge of other languages may just disappear: psychological or physical violence, e. g. native american boarding schools. Children are taken to boarding schools and are prohibited from speaking their native languages, which in turn in time allows that language to die: simplification in grammar and lexicon, fewer opportunities to use the language. When you use the language less, you lose vocabulary, which increases the dying process: disappearance from certain domains of use. Top-down: no longer used in public domains, but used in the home: dominant language pushes the other languages out. Bottom-up: no longer used in the home, but used in official and public: ex.
