Year: 1998
Type: article
Abstract: Language endangerment is undoubtedly among the most current topics in linguistics today.My review of the literature suggests a number of shortcomings in the way linguists have discussed the sub- ject matter and some inadequacies in the kinds of remedies that have been recommended for the problem.I conclude that compared to our counterparts in ecology, who have been concerned with endangered species, we in linguistics have done little basic research about the life of a language and are therefore ill-prepared to recommend adequate solutions to the problem.We should do more research on the subject matter and offer more courses in our curricula to prepare future gen- erations of linguists better for the question of language endangerment.The 1990s will undoubtedly be remembered in the history of linguistics as the period during which awareness of language endangerment and death increased among linguists.It will also be remembered by the kinds of concerns ex- pressed over this state of affairs; chief among these is linguists' primary focus on loss of diversityvery much in the interest of their profession, based at least on the way Krauss 1992 and Hale 1998 present the subject matter.There have also been several expressions of solicitude about the relevant populations losing their ancestral traditions along with their languages, but concern over loss of linguistic diversity seems to stand out.This response is in contrast with linguists' marginal interest in the balance sheets of costs and benefits from the perspective of former or current speakers of the dead or dying languages, respectively.1Hale 1998 characterizes the primary concern of linguists correctly as 'self- serving.'Over a decade earlier, Fishman 1982 had expressed a similar concern, arguing that language policies in the Western world have promoted shifting to major languages of domination at the expense of minor languages (for the pur- 1 poses of developing nations that are monolingual).Remarking that there is beauty in diversity, he stated that the loss of languages spoken by smaller communities of speakers is an expensive price for humanity to pay.Interestingly, lin- guists have seldom criticized themselves for advising Third-World countries, in the 1960s, to promote national official languages (qua languages of wider communication), which would allegedly foster national unity and expedite their de- velopment.This was indeed a central concern of the sociology of language then, as expressed by some essays in Fishman 1968.
Author: Salikoko S. Mufwene
Language: English
Subfield: Linguistics and Language
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W1170524442