Why Language Endangerment and Language Death Matter: ‘Took away our native tongue … And taught their English to our young’
- First Online: 01 March 2019
![](http://sektorel.online/777/templates/cheerup/res/banner1.gif)
Cite this chapter
- Timothy Reagan 2
879 Accesses
1 Citations
It is clear that the overwhelming majority of languages that have been spoken by human beings are extinct, and that most are both unknown and unknowable. Issues of language loss have gained increasing attention in recent years, however, and in this chapter, four major aspects of language endangerment are explored. An overview of the nature and causes of language endangerment and language extinction is provided, and what has been labeled the ‘biological metaphor’—the idea that language endangerment is in some sense analogous to biological endangerment—is examined to determine the extent to which it is valid when applied to the case of languages. Next, the most common responses to the question, “Why does language endangerment matter?” are discussed, and a case is made that language endangerment matters a great deal for a variety of different reasons. Finally, the complex and paradoxical role of education both as a threat to endangered languages and as a potential positive force in supporting and revitalizing such languages is explored.
From the song ‘Indian Reservation (The Lament of the Cherokee Reservation Indian)’, words and music by John D. Loudermilk and performed by, among others, Paul Revere and the Raiders.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Subscribe and save.
- Get 10 units per month
- Download Article/Chapter or eBook
- 1 Unit = 1 Article or 1 Chapter
- Cancel anytime
- Available as PDF
- Read on any device
- Instant download
- Own it forever
- Available as EPUB and PDF
- Durable hardcover edition
- Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
- Free shipping worldwide - see info
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Institutional subscriptions
There are examples of such language maintenance schools among some immigrant populations in the US, such as immigrants from Greece, who have sought to maintain their ethnic language for a variety of reasons (see, for instance, Condos, 1997 ).
I leave aside here those classification systems from the natural sciences which are so intended, but which nevertheless are also flawed by the individuals who construct then and the societies in which they are used. The Linnaean taxonomic system that many of us learned in our basic science courses was largely replaced in practice in the 1960s with a Cladistic taxonomy, based on evolutionary relationships, and this in turn is now being modified into the ‘International Code of Phylogenetic Nomenclature’, or ‘PhyloCode’, which will, at least as I understand it, allow the two systems to co-exist.
Abley, M. (2003). Spoken here: Travels among threatened languages . Boston: Houghton Mifflin.
Google Scholar
Adams, J. (2003). Bilingualism and the Latin language . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Book Google Scholar
Adams, J., Janse, M., & Swain, S. (Eds.). (2002). Bilingualism in ancient society: Language contact and the written word . Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Adkins, L. (2003). Empires of the plain: Henry Rawlinson and the lost languages of Babylon . New York: St. Martin’s Press.
Barber, C. (1993). The English language: A historical introduction . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Batterbury, S., Ladd, P., & Gulliver, M. (2007). Sign language peoples as indigenous minorities: Implications for research and policy. Environment and Planning, 39 (12), 2899–2915.
Article Google Scholar
Baugh, A. C., & Cable, T. (2002). A history of the English language (5th ed.). London: Routledge.
Black, M. (1962). Models and metaphors: Studies in language and philosophy . Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
Brenzinger, M. (1992). Language death: Factual and theoretical explorations with special reference to East Africa . Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
Burling, R. (2005). The talking ape: How language evolved . Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Burrow, J., & Turville-Petre, T. (1996). A book of Middle English (2nd ed.). Oxford: Blackwell.
Condos, A. (1997). The Greek language school as a transmitter of ethnicity: A study of linguistic, cultural and religious maintenance . Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University of Connecticut, Storrs, Connecticut.
Cooper, J. (1996). Sumerian and Akkadian. In P. Daniels & W. Bright (Eds.), The world’s writing systems (pp. 37–59). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Crawford, J. (1994). Endangered Native American languages: What is to do done, and why? Paper presented at the annual conference of the American Educational Research Association, New Orleans, Louisiana, April 5.
Crystal, D. (2000). Language death . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Dalby, A. (2002). Language in danger . New York: Penguin Books.
De Vos, C., & Zeshan, U. (2012). Introduction. In U. Zeshan & C. De Vos (Eds.), Sign languages in village communities: Anthropological and linguistic insights (pp. 2–23). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
Dixon, R. (1997). The rise and fall of languages . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Dorian, N. (1981). Language death: The life cycle of a Scottish Gaelic dialect . Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.
Dorian, N. (1994). Purism vs. compromise in language revitalization and language revival. Language in Society, 23 (4), 479–494.
Edwards, J. (1992). Sociopolitical aspects of language maintenance and loss: Towards a typology of minority language situations. In W. Fase, K. Jaspaert, & S. Kroon (Eds.), Maintenance and loss of minority languages (pp. 37–54). Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Chapter Google Scholar
Elgin, S. (2000). The language imperative . Cambridge, MA: Perseus Books.
Evans, N. (2010). Dying words: Endangered languages and what they have to tell us . Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell.
Finnegan, R. (1970). Oral literature in Africa . Nairobi: Oxford University Press.
Finzsch, N. (2008). ‘Extirpate or remove that vermine’: Genocide, biological warfare, and settler imperialism in the eighteenth and early nineteenth century. Journal of Genocide Research, 10 (2), 215–232.
Fishman, J. (1991). Reversing language shift . Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.
Fishman, J. (2000). Reversing language shift: RLS theory and practice revisited. In G. Kindell & M. Lewis (Eds.), Assessing ethnolinguistic vitality: Theory and practice: Selected papers from the Third International Language Assessment Conference (pp. 1–25). Dallas, TX: SIL International.
Fishman, J. (Ed.). (2001). Can threatened languages be saved? Reversing language shift, revisited: A 21st century perspective . Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.
Fishman, J. (2006a). Do not leave your language alone: The hidden status agendas within corpus planning in language policy . Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Fishman, J. (2006b). Good conferences in a wicked world: On some worrisome problems in the study of language maintenance and language shift. In N. Hornberger & M. Pütz (Eds.), Language loyalty, language planning and language revitalization: Recent writings and reflections from Joshua A. Fishman (pp. 133–139). Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.
Freeborn, D. (1998). From Old English to standard English (2nd ed.). New York: Palgrave.
Grenoble, L., & Whaley, L. (Eds.). (1998). Endangered languages: Current issues and future prospects . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Grenoble, L., & Whaley, L. (2006). Saving languages: An introduction to language revitalization . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Grin, F. (2005). Linguistic human rights as a source of policy guidelines: A critical assessment. Journal of Sociolinguistics, 9 (3), 448–460.
Guillorel, H., & Koubi, G. (Eds.). (1999). Langues du droit, droit des langues [Languages of rights, rights of languages]. Brussells: Bruylant.
Hagège, C. (2000). Halte à la mort des langues [Stop the death of languages]. Paris: Editions Odile Jacob.
Hagège, C. (2009). On the death and life of languages . New Haven: Yale University Press.
Hale, K. (1998). On endangered languages and the importance of linguistic diversity. In L. Grenoble & L. Whaley (Eds.), Endangered languages: Current issues and future prospects (pp. 192–216). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Harbert, W., with McConnell-Ginet, S., Miller, A., & Whitman, J. (Eds.). (2009). Language and poverty . Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.
Harrison, K. (2007). When languages die: The extinction of the world’s languages and the erosion of human knowledge . Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Hindley, R. (1990). The death of the Irish language: A qualified obituary . London: Routledge.
Hinton, L., & Hale, K. (Eds.). (2013). The green book of language revitalization in practice . Leiden: Brill.
Kaplan, R., & Baldauf, R. (1997). Language planning: From practice to theory . Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.
Kenneally, C. (2007). The first word: The search for the origins of language . London: Penguin Books.
King, K., Schilling-Estes, N., Fogle, L., Lou, J., & Soukup, B. (Eds.). (2008). Sustaining linguistic diversity: Endangered and minority languages and language varieties . Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press.
Kontra, M., Phillipson, R., Skutnabb-Kangas, T., & Várady, T. (Eds.). (1999). Language: A right and a resource . Budapest: Central European University Press.
Krauss, M. (1992). The world’s languages in crisis. Language, 68 (1), 4–10.
Krauss, M. (2006). Classification and terminology for degrees of language endangerment. In M. Brenzinger (Ed.), Language diversity endangered (pp. 1–18). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
Kroeber, K. (1981). The art of traditional American Indian narration. In K. Kroeber (Ed.), Traditional literatures of the American Indian: Texts and interpretations (pp. 1–24). Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press.
Kunitz, S. (1994). Disease and social diversity: The European impact on the health of non-Europeans . Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Lakoff, G., & Johnson, M. (1980). Metaphors we live by . Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Lass, R. (1994). Old English: A historical linguistic companion . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Lee, P. (1996). The Whorf theory complex: A critical reconstruction . Philadelphia and Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Leith, D. (1997). A social history of English (2nd ed.). London: Routledge.
May, S. (2005). Language rights: Moving the debate forward. Journal of Sociolinguistics, 9 (3), 319–347.
McCarty, T. (2002). Between possibility and constraint: Indigenous language education, planning, and policy in the United States. In J. Tollefson (Ed.), Language policies in education: Critical issues (pp. 285–307). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
McWhorter, J. (2001). The power of Babel: A natural history of language . New York: W. H. Freeman.
McWhorter, J. (2009). Most of the world’s languages went extent. In S. Blum (Ed.), Making sense of language (pp. 192–206). New York: Oxford University Press.
Merrell, F. (2001). Charles Sanders Peirce’s concept of the sign. In P. Cobley (Ed.), Semiotics and linguistics (pp. 28–39). London: Routledge.
Milne, A. (1962). Winnie ille pu [Winnie the Pooh] (A. Lenard, Trans.). New York: E. P. Dutton.
Milne, A. (1980). Winnie ille pu: Semper ludet [Winnie the Pooh: Always playing; in English, The House at Pooh Corner] (B. Staples, Trans.). New York: Dutton.
Mitchell, B. (1995). An invitation to Old English and Anglo-Saxon England . Oxford: Blackwell.
Mitchell, B., & Robinson, F. (1992). A guide to Old English (5th ed.). Oxford: Blackwell.
Mithun, M. (1998). The significance of diversity in language endangerment and preservation. In L. Grenoble & L. Whaley (Eds.), Endangered languages: Current issues and future prospects (pp. 163–191). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Mithun, M. (1999). The languages of native North America . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Moseley, C. (2010). Atlas of the world’s languages in danger (3rd ed.). Paris: UNESCO.
Nettle, D. (1999). Linguistic diversity . Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Nettle, D., & Romaine, S. (2000). Vanishing voices: The extinction of the world’s languages . Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Newman, P. (2003). The endangered languages issue as a hopeless cause). In M. Janse & S. Tol (Eds.), Language death and language maintenance: Theoretical, practical and description approaches (pp. 1–13). Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Nichols, J. (1998). The origin and dispersal of languages: Linguistic evidence. In N. Jablonski & L. Aiello (Eds.), The origin and diversification of language (pp. 127–170). San Francisco: California Academy of Sciences.
Nielsen, P. (2003). English in Argentina: A sociolinguistic profile. World Englishes, 22 (2), 199–209.
Nonaka, A. (2012). Language ecological change in Ban Khor, Thailand: An ethnographic case study of village sign language endangerment. In U. Zeshan & C. de Vos (Eds.), Sign languages in village communities: Anthropological and linguistic insights (pp. 277–312). Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton and Ishara Press.
Nonaka, A. (2014). (Almost) everyone here spoke Ban Khor Sign Language – until they started using TSL: Language shift and endangerment of a Thai village sign language. Language and Communication, 38 , 54–72.
Nöth, W. (1990). Handbook of semiotics . Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.
Ó Riagáin, P. (1997). Language policy and social reproduction: Ireland, 1893–1993 . Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Opland, J. (2018). Xhosa literature: Spoken and written words . Pietermaritzburg: University of KwaZulu-Natal Press.
Patrick, D. (2005). Language rights in indigenous communities: The case of the Inuit of Arctic Québec. Journal of Sociolinguistics, 9 (3), 369–389.
Phillipson, R. (Ed.). (2000). Rights to language: Equity, power, and education . Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Prucha, F. (Ed.). (1990). Documents of United States Indian policy (2nd ed.). Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press.
Reagan, T. (2018). The deaf as an indigenous community: Philosophical considerations. In J. Petrovic & R. Mitchell (Eds.), Indigenous philosophies of education around the world (pp. 82–104). New York: Routledge.
Ricoeur, P. (1975). La métaphore vive [The vivid metaphor]. Paris: Seuil.
Romaine, S. (2008). Linguistic diversity, sustainability, and the future of the past. In K. King, N. Schilling-Estes, L. Fogle, J. Lou, & B. Soukup (Eds.), Sustaining linguistic diversity: Endangered and minority languages and language varieties (pp. 7–21). Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press.
Rowling, J. (1997). Harrius Potter et philosophi lapis [Harry Potter and the philosopher’s stone] (P. Needham, Trans.). London: Bloomsbury.
Rowling, J. (1998). Harrius Potter et camera secretorum [Harry Potter and the chamber of secrets] (P. Needham, Trans.). London: Bloomsbury.
Sasse, H. (1990). Theory of language death . Arbeitspapier, 12. Köln: Universität zu Köln, Institut für Sprachwissenschaft.
Sasse, H. (1992). Theory of language death. In M. Brenzinger (Ed.), Language death: Factual and theoretical explorations with reference to East Africa (pp. 7–30). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
Seri, A. (2015). El uso de la escritura cuneiforme para escribir el acadio [The use of cuneiform to write Akkadian]. Claroscuro: Revista del Centro de Estudios Sobre Diversidad Cultural, 14 , 1–29.
Seuss, Dr. [Geisel, T.]. (1999). Quomodo invidiosulus nomine Grinchus Christi natalem abrogaverit [How the Grinch stole Christmas] (T. Tunberg, Trans.). Wauconda, IL: Bolchazy-Carducci Publishers.
Seuss, Dr. [Geisel, T.]. (2000). Cattus petasatus [The cat in the hat] (J. Tunberg & T. Tunberg, Trans.). Wauconda, IL: Bolchazy-Carducci Publishers.
Seuss, Dr. [Geisel, T.]. (2003). Virent ova! Viret perna!! [Green eggs and ham] (G. Tunberg & T. Tunberg, Trans.). Wauconda, IL: Bolchazy-Carducci Publishers.
Simons, G., & Fennig, C. (Eds.). (2018). Ethnologue: Languages of the world (21st ed.). Dallas, TX: SIL International. Retrieved May 6, 2018, from http://www.ethnologue.com
Skutnabb-Kangas, T. (2000). Linguistic genocide in education – or worldwide diversity and human rights? Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Skutnabb-Kangas, T., & Phillipson, R. (Eds.), in collaboration with Rannut, M. (1995). Linguistic human rights: Overcoming linguistic discrimination . Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
Smith, J. (1999). Essentials of early English . London: Routledge.
Spring, J. (2008). The American school: From the Puritans to no child left behind (7th ed.). Boston: McGraw Hill.
Swain, S. (1996). Hellenism and empire: Language, classicism, and power in the Greek world, AD 50–250 . Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Tollefson, J., & Tsui, A. (Eds.). (2004). Medium of instruction policies: Which agenda? Whose agenda? Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Tsunoda, T. (2006). Language endangerment and language revitalization: An introduction . Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
Wiley, T. (2002). Accessing language rights in education: A brief history of the US context. In J. Tollefson (Ed.), Language policies in education: Critical issues (pp. 39–64). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Wong, L. (1999). Authenticity and the revitalization of Hawaiian. Anthropology and Education Quarterly, 30 , 94–115.
Woodbury, A. (1998). Documenting rhetorical, aesthetic, and expressive loss in language shift. In L. Grenoble & L. Whalely (Eds.), Endangered languages: Current issues and future prospects (pp. 234–258). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Woodward, J. (2000). Sign languages and sign language families in Thailand and Viet Nam. In K. Emmorey & H. Lane (Eds.), The Signs of Language revisited: An anthology to honor Ursula Bellugi and Edward Klima (pp. 23–47). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Woodward, J. (2003). Sign languages and deaf identities in Thailand and Viet Nam. In L. Monaghan, K. Nakamura, C. Schmaling, & G. Turner (Eds.), Many ways to be deaf: International variation in deaf communities (pp. 283–301). Washington, DC: Gallaudet University Press.
Download references
Author information
Authors and affiliations.
College of Education & Human Development, University of Maine, Orono, ME, USA
Timothy Reagan
You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar
Corresponding author
Correspondence to Timothy Reagan .
Rights and permissions
Reprints and permissions
Copyright information
© 2019 The Author(s)
About this chapter
Reagan, T. (2019). Why Language Endangerment and Language Death Matter: ‘Took away our native tongue … And taught their English to our young’. In: Linguistic Legitimacy and Social Justice. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-10967-7_9
Download citation
DOI : https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-10967-7_9
Published : 01 March 2019
Publisher Name : Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN : 978-3-030-10966-0
Online ISBN : 978-3-030-10967-7
eBook Packages : Social Sciences Social Sciences (R0)
Share this chapter
Anyone you share the following link with will be able to read this content:
Sorry, a shareable link is not currently available for this article.
Provided by the Springer Nature SharedIt content-sharing initiative
- Publish with us
Policies and ethics
- Find a journal
- Track your research
- DOI: 10.1146/ANNUREV.ANTHRO.33.070203.143852
- Corpus ID: 27725766
Language Birth and Death
- Published 15 September 2004
- Linguistics
- Annual Review of Anthropology
![](http://sektorel.online/777/templates/cheerup/res/banner1.gif)
162 Citations
The cambridge handbook of endangered languages: revitalization of endangered languages, predictability of language death: structural compatibility and language contact, language death and revival: cornish as a minority language in uk, the role of mother-tongue schooling in eradicating poverty: a response to language and poverty, the invasion of language: emergence, change and death., superdiversity and its explanatory limits, a model of the mechanisms of language extinction and revitalization strategies to save endangered languages, the auyl truel.
- Highly Influenced
The Cambridge Handbook of Endangered Languages: Language curriculum design and evaluation for endangered languages
Attitudes to endangered languages: identities and policies, 76 references, the portuguese language in trinidad and tobago: a study of language shift and language death, linguistic ecology: language change and linguistic imperialism in the pacific region, endangered languages: current issues and future prospects, creolization of language and culture, what is language death, on biocultural diversity: linking language, knowledge, and the environment, the rise and fall of languages, investigating obsolescence: studies in language contraction and death, the role of diffusion in the genesis of hawaiian creole, related papers.
Showing 1 through 3 of 0 Related Papers
![research paper language death U.S. flag](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/coreutils/uswds/img/favicons/favicon-57.png)
An official website of the United States government
The .gov means it’s official. Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.
The site is secure. The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.
- Publications
- Account settings
- My Bibliography
- Collections
- Citation manager
Save citation to file
Email citation, add to collections.
- Create a new collection
- Add to an existing collection
Add to My Bibliography
Your saved search, create a file for external citation management software, your rss feed.
- Search in PubMed
- Search in NLM Catalog
- Add to Search
Digital language death
Affiliation.
- 1 Computer and Automation Research Institute, Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Budapest, Hungary.
- PMID: 24167559
- PMCID: PMC3805564
- DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0077056
Of the approximately 7,000 languages spoken today, some 2,500 are generally considered endangered. Here we argue that this consensus figure vastly underestimates the danger of digital language death, in that less than 5% of all languages can still ascend to the digital realm. We present evidence of a massive die-off caused by the digital divide.
PubMed Disclaimer
Conflict of interest statement
Competing Interests: The author has declared that no competing interests exist.
Figure 1. Bimodal distribution of two-way classifiers.
Figure 2. Adjusted wikipedia size plotted against…
Figure 2. Adjusted wikipedia size plotted against number of speakers, log-log scales.
Dot size shows…
Similar articles
- Prosodic and narrative processing in American Sign Language: an fMRI study. Newman AJ, Supalla T, Hauser PC, Newport EL, Bavelier D. Newman AJ, et al. Neuroimage. 2010 Aug 15;52(2):669-76. doi: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2010.03.055. Epub 2010 Mar 27. Neuroimage. 2010. PMID: 20347996 Free PMC article.
- Consequences of the Now-or-Never bottleneck for signed versus spoken languages. Emmorey K. Emmorey K. Behav Brain Sci. 2016 Jan;39:e70. doi: 10.1017/S0140525X1500076X. Behav Brain Sci. 2016. PMID: 27562833 Free PMC article.
- Language extinction and linguistic fronts. Isern N, Fort J. Isern N, et al. J R Soc Interface. 2014 Mar 5;11(94):20140028. doi: 10.1098/rsif.2014.0028. Print 2014 May 6. J R Soc Interface. 2014. PMID: 24598207 Free PMC article.
- Why Are There Different Languages? The Role of Adaptation in Linguistic Diversity. Lupyan G, Dale R. Lupyan G, et al. Trends Cogn Sci. 2016 Sep;20(9):649-660. doi: 10.1016/j.tics.2016.07.005. Epub 2016 Aug 5. Trends Cogn Sci. 2016. PMID: 27499347 Review.
- Unity and disunity in evolutionary sciences: process-based analogies open common research avenues for biology and linguistics. List JM, Pathmanathan JS, Lopez P, Bapteste E. List JM, et al. Biol Direct. 2016 Aug 20;11:39. doi: 10.1186/s13062-016-0145-2. Biol Direct. 2016. PMID: 27544206 Free PMC article. Review.
- Children and adults produce distinct technology- and human-directed speech. Cohn M, Barreda S, Graf Estes K, Yu Z, Zellou G. Cohn M, et al. Sci Rep. 2024 Jul 6;14(1):15611. doi: 10.1038/s41598-024-66313-5. Sci Rep. 2024. PMID: 38971806 Free PMC article.
- "What is language for us?": Community-based Anishinaabemowin language planning using TEK-nology. Meighan PJ. Meighan PJ. Lang Policy. 2023;22(2):223-253. doi: 10.1007/s10993-023-09656-5. Epub 2023 May 12. Lang Policy. 2023. PMID: 37213430 Free PMC article.
- Drivers of Emerging Infectious Disease Events as a Framework for Digital Detection. Olson SH, Benedum CM, Mekaru SR, Preston ND, Mazet JA, Joly DO, Brownstein JS. Olson SH, et al. Emerg Infect Dis. 2015 Aug;21(8):1285-92. doi: 10.3201/eid2108.141156. Emerg Infect Dis. 2015. PMID: 26196106 Free PMC article.
- Morpurgo-Davies A (1998) History of Linguistics.Vol. IV: Nineteenth-Century Linguistics. London and New York: Longman, 464 pp.
- Darwin C (1871) The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex. London: John Murray, 423 pp.
- Frank RM (2008) The language-organism-species analogy: A complex adaptive systems approach to shifting perspective on ‘language’. In: M FR, Dirven R, Ziemke T, Bernárdez E, editors, Body, Language and Mind. Vol. 2. Sociocultural Situatedness, Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. 215–262.
- Nettle D, Romaine S (2000) Vanishing voices: The extinction of the world’s languages. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 243 pp.
- Crystal D (2002) Language death. Cambridge University Press, 210 pp.
Publication types
- Search in MeSH
Related information
Grants and funding, linkout - more resources, full text sources.
- Europe PubMed Central
- PubMed Central
- Public Library of Science
Other Literature Sources
- scite Smart Citations
![research paper language death full text provider logo](https://cdn.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/corehtml/query/egifs/https:--journals.plos.org-resource-img-external-pone_120x30.png)
- Citation Manager
NCBI Literature Resources
MeSH PMC Bookshelf Disclaimer
The PubMed wordmark and PubMed logo are registered trademarks of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). Unauthorized use of these marks is strictly prohibited.
![](http://sektorel.online/777/templates/cheerup/res/banner1.gif)
IMAGES
VIDEO
COMMENTS
This review paper is aimed at exploring the causes of language death. To be more specific, this papers seeks to describe the language death, and the major reasons behind the death of a language ...
The purpose of this paper is to explore themes of language death in various respects, with focus on why we should care about languages dying. This paper also answered some questions regarding the ...
This essay will look into the factors and causes of language shift and death, as well as the strategies that can assist in keeping our cultural diversity alive.
The Ethnologue suggests that language vitality (and hence language endangerment) is based on two main dimensions of language use, language users and language functions—in Dorian's terms, the size of the speaker community and the domains of use.
The article is an in-depth review of Petar Kehayov's monograph The Fate of Mood and Modality in Language Death: Evidence from Minor Finnic (De Gruyter Mouton, 2017). The book investigates the development of mood and modality in four moribund Finnic languages spoken in the Russian Federation: Votic, Ingrian, Central Lude, and Eastern Seto.
The impact of globalization, language policy, and the predominance of major world languages are just a few of the factors that are thoroughly investigated as language death causes. The impact of language death on the affected communities and the larger global linguistic landscape is also examined in this investigation.
This chapter contains sections titled: Types of Language Death Causes of Language Death Models of Language Loss Structural Levels in Language Death Variability in Language Obsolesence Com...
Other terms frequently encountered in the endangered languages literature include: language loss, for a situation where a person or group is no longer able to use a language previously spoken; language maintenance, where people continue to use a language, often through adopting speci Wc measures; and language loyalty, which expresses the ...
The paper introduces the worldwide phenomenon of language death, and briefly elaborates on the arguments for saving endangered languages. The main focus of the paper is revived Cornish.
Of the approximately 7,000 languages spoken today, some 2,500 are generally considered endangered. Here we argue that this consensus figure vastly underestimates the danger of digital language death, in that less than 5% of all languages can still ascend to the digital realm. We present evidence of a massive die-off caused by the digital divide.
I think language loss is comparable to loss of species. The intuition that the death of a language is a significant event, reflects that: Something that evolved gradually over hundreds of years, passed on through hundreds of generations and thousands of individual speakers, is irreversibly gone, once and for all.
s philosophy with little consideration of language trends and needs of a community. This paper is an attempt to tie together research on language maintenance/shift and that on bilingual education, showing that t e uccess of an education program can be enha 1. Language maintenance, shift and death
To be more specific, this papers seeks to describe the language death, and the major reasons behind the death of a language. The data collected through different online journal articles, websites ...
This research deals with the problem of language loss in the world and seeks answer to critical questions: What does language extinction mean for humankind? What is to be done to save languages from loss?
A Grammar of the Kiwai Language, Fly Delta, Papua, with a Kiwai Vocabulary by E. Baxter Riley. Port Moresby, Government Printer. Vakhtin, Nikolaj Borisovich and Golovko, Jevgenin Vasiljevich (1987), ' Ob odnom neordinarnom sledstvii jazykovykh kontaktov: jazyk ostrova Mednyj' [About an unusual consequence of language contacts: the language of ...
Nouf Aljohani Abstract— This research paper focuses on Language Death and Language Acquisition. The research paper shows the broad definition of language death and how motivation plays an important role in acquiring the language. .
Of the approximately 7,000 languages spoken today, some 2,500 are generally considered endangered. Here we argue that this consensus figure vastly underestimates the danger of digital language death, in that less than 5% of all languages can still ascend to the digital realm. We present evidence of a massive die-off caused by the digital divide.
The notion of 'language death' is usually associated with one of the 'endangered languages', i.e. languages that are at risk of falling out of use as their speakers die out or shift to some other language. This paper describes another kind of language death: the situation in which a language remains a powerful identity marker and the mother tongue of a country's privileged and ...
The most common process leading to language death is one in which a community of speakers of one language becomes bilingual in another language, and gradually shifts adherence to the subsequent language until they cease to use their original language.
PDF | "Language death is like no other form of disappearance. When people die, they leave signs of their presence in the world, in the form of their... | Find, read and cite all the research you ...
Large Language Models (LLMs) have shown notable abilities in a wide range of tasks and even complex problem-solving [4; 37; 7; 12].Their ability to reason, encompassing the understanding of intricate scenarios, strategic planning, and multi-step execution, is crucial for developing advanced AI agents and decision-making systems [20; 30; 6].These capabilities allow LLMs to understand complex ...
A Language death is a death of Humanity. India has achieved many targets in Health, education, social empowerment, law and order but probably not much in the preservation and promotion of ...
This paper seeks to investigate the current state of Dompo, the reasons for a shift to the dominant Nafaanra language. A questionnaire consisting of 35 items, which has 5 sections namely, the ...