Endangered Languages and Causes of Language Extinction

International Social Science Journal, 2002

2014

Most of the 6,000‐7,000 languages spoken across the world are under threat. In some cases, the few remaining speakers are elderly and the languages are not being transmitted to new generations. In other cases, the speakers are shifting to dominant languages. The result of these events is a crisis in linguistic diversity leading many scholars to predict that between 50%-90% of all the world‘s languages will be extinct by the end of this century. Although various approaches have been developed to examine the issues underlying this crisis, no one has yet proposed a unifying framework. To address this gap, this paper proposes an ecological framework through which the processes of language attrition, shift and extinction can be examined and evaluated. Ever since ecological approaches were introduced to sociolinguistics by Einar Haugen in 1971, they have found broad application in the field. Various interpretations have been developed: for example, in terms of correlations between the nic...

Anandam, Journal of Anundoram Borooah Institute of Language, Art and Culture, 2018

The issue of endangerment or loss of a great number of languages and its impact on human civilization has taken the centre stage in the academia since 1990s. Besides linguists and language researchers, academics from other branches of knowledge such as anthropology, history, political science, social science etc has started taking interest in to this issue. Keeping in mind the crucial role played by language at both the personal and societal level in the mankind, the loss of a single language and its resultant impact has intrigued academics from diverse fields of study to look at this issue. It has prompted the learned body of academics, researchers and community members to take urgent and necessary steps, if possible at all, to preserve these languages. This paper investigates into the concept of language endangerment and discusses the various reasons behind such endangerment. Besides it also cites two widely discussed models of looking into different levels of endangerment of languages.

European Review, 2017

2012

Many languages of the world are at risk of extinct soon. The crisis of endangered languages is one of the most serious issues facing humanity today, posing moral, practical, and scientific problems of enormous proportions. This catalogue informs users about the plight of endangered languages and encourages efforts to slow the loss. It provides information on the endangered languages of the world as a resource for the public, scholars, those whose languages are in peril and community groups facing language loss, and funding agencies to be able to deploy limited resources.

Journal of Linguistic Anthropology, 1995

lems, which arise more from availability than from lack of oversight, Genre and the New Rhetoric is a significant contribution to our understanding of a multiplicity of issues related to genre, such as rhetoric, philosophy of language, speech act theory, literacy, and language education. Endangered Languages. Robert H. Robins and Eugenius M. Uhlenbeck, eds. Berg Oxford, 1991.273 pp.

This chapter addresses structural aspects of language endangerment from two perspectives: the contributions that the study of endangered languages make to typology and linguistic theory, and the structural consequences of language endangerment, including the kinds of changes that can take place in the phonology, morphology and syntax of endangered languages.

Language endangerment and Language shift have long been a topic of discussion among sociolinguists, linguists, language planners, educators, and others. The result has been an extensive literature about the causes, processes, symptoms, and results of language loss and death (Denison ). Language endangerment and Language shift are socio-political and cultural phenomenon.

Language in Society, 2017

In response to a crescendo of public and scholarly interest, over the last two decades there has been a noticeable and mostly welcome surge in publications that focus on language documentation, conservation, and revitalization. Early and high impact contributions in Hale et al. (1992) included a now seminal article by Michael Krauss which called for urgent action to prevent linguistics from going down in history as the 'only science that presided obliviously over the disappearance of 90% of the very field to which it is dedicated' (Krauss 1992:10). There then followed a discussion on the topic by Ladefoged (1992) and a prompt reply by Dorian (1993) that situated the issue of language endangerment as one deserving of sustained academic attention. Alongside swelling bookshelves that speak to the urgency of this work, major research programs funded by private philanthropic organizations and research councils were also being established at this time. The Foundation for Endangered Languages (FEL) was founded in 1995, followed a year later by the Endangered Language Fund (ELF). With the establishment of the Dokumentation Bedrohter Sprachen program (DoBeS) in 2000, the Hans Rausing Endangered Languages Project (HRELP) in 2002, and the Documenting Endangered Languages (DEL) program funded by the US government in 2005, the last two decades bear witness to a steady increase in support, funding, and visibility for the documentation and preservation of endangered languages.

Sociolinguistic Studies, 2008