LING 2420 Lecture 9: LING 2420 - Language Shift, death, revitalization (1)
Document Summary
Dead or extinct language: no longer spoken by anyone (though recordings and written documentation may exist). For example, parents no longer speak the language thus language is no longer acquired by children. Endangered: the danger that language will cease to be acquired by children. Only 10% of world"s languages are deemed safe. But: many of the world"s languages have always had small numbers of speakers. Alternative perspective: languages dormant (sleeping), not dead. Documentation and preservation of endangered languages is a major topic in linguistics. Includes languages of small-scale societies that are often studied by linguistics anthropologists (monitors cultural change): Language shift in a papuan village: not directly caused by external forces, but by developments within the community. Don kulick wrote a book called a death in the rainforest . Describes na vety as a grad student and culture shock. Death refers to language death and shock over the death of someone (?)
