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Sali,
<p>It was clear that you had accidentally omitted 'not' and I immediately
knew what had happened.
<p>It would be a huge, huge task to become a real expert on language endangerment,
because linguistics, sociology, anthropology, history, politics, group
and individual psychology, and such matters as technology and political
power must be understood. Good luck with your review.
<p>I knew a couple of Zaïrians here almost 30 years ago. His
native language was kikongo but he could also speak lingala. His
wife spoke lingala and another language from the area. When they
were together with me, they spoke French, but he said they tended to speak
lingala at home. They were quite fluent in French (I'm not) -- with
African intonations. Another Zaïrian student was here at the
same (came a year earlier, both for MAs in linguistics)). When one
of the American linguistics undergraduates started asking Jean-Grâce
about kikongo, he realized that it had never occurred to him to analyze
his own language. He then did a couple of excellent research papers.
His colleague, Pierre, tried to do some follow-up research on lingala but
was not as strong intellectually and didn't produce the beautiful analysis
that his friend had achieved. Lingala has less morphology than kikongo,
as I recall, but that was not the reason why Pierre's work did not measure
up. Shortly before Jean-Grâce was to graduate, his country's
leaders decided to get away from colonialism by changing the name of the
country from Congo to Zaîre, ironically, a Portuguese form of the
local name for the river, Nzade. The two students thought they should
have chosen the African name. The two had to change their names.
Pierre became Kiyedi, and Jean-Grâce became Nsiang-kula (or something
like that). He was able to make the change on his records before
graduation. Unfortunately, Nsiang-kula was killed in a car crash.
Kiyedi ended up teaching English in an undergraduate engineering school
upriver from Kinshasa (occasionally I think of the name of the town).
About 15 years later he wrote me asking about the possibility of his getting
an assistantship to do a doctorate, but I saw no way of doing so, not just
because of his scholarship but because there were so many cut-backs here
under a Republican governor. I wish Jean-Grâce could have gone
on for a PhD.
<p>I would imagine that occasionally you get some humorous questions or
observations about the role of Swahili across the African continent, even
the suggestion that it might replace all other languages.
<p>DMlance
<p>Salikoko Mufwene wrote:
<blockquote TYPE=CITE><font size=+1>Don:</font>
<p><font size=+1> Let me first clarify something
that I just expressed in a contrary way in my note to you this morning.
I meant to say that I did not want to react improperly/inadequately to
things that may otherwise be well stated. Unfortunately I omitted "not"
in my statement and sounded like I am so uncooperativc I would just look
for the worst interpretation. I really think that "indigenous" just adds
more confusion in a subject matter where things must be sorted out very
cautiously.</font>
<p><font size=+1> I am rather reluctant now to
discuss the subject matter of language endangerment itself, because
it is very complex and I am not sure that things have been sorted out to
my satisfaction. (Incidentally the Nettle & Romaine book is very informative
and quite an improvement over the current literature.) I need the kind
of format I chose (review article and general response) to articulate my
thoughts carefully. Overall, those discussing language endangerment the
most (especially theoretical linguists) have not clearly distinguished
language preservation (please think of food preservation in a jar in this
context) from language maintainance and from language revitalization. It
is not clear to me, as a person affected by globalization as a form
of Westernization (one of its many interpretations, as I read again this
morning) that the point of view of the victim has hardly been considered,
from the point of view of adaptation to changing ecology. (Loss of heritage
or of diversity is a humane way of protecting the subject matter of linguistics--at
least Michael Krauss was straightforward about that in 1992.) Sometimes
I wonder whether linguists can really think of speakers of languages as
human beings needing to survive rather than as sources of information.
(Oh, that's Mufwene as a "Tiers-mondiste" that cannot always be suppressed--I
am sorry.) But at a more technical level, it would help to learn what really
leads to language endangerment--is it other languages? speakers? or ecological
systems over which the vast majority of speakers and their languages have
no control? (I am amused by phrases such as "killer languages," because
the metaphor is terribly inadequate.) Some interventions make me wonder
why try to fix things with the victims when we should be dealing with the
victimizers? Can we deal with the victimizers and at what cost? Believe
me, I would very much like to see my language saved, not just preserved
and even as a linguist I feel so helpless, knowing why some of my people
are shifting to Kituba or Lingala (NOT to French in this case)... Well,
I should really remain relunctant to discuss the subject matter now.</font>
<p><font size=+1>Thanks for your attention,</font>
<p><font size=+1>Sali.</font>
<p><font size=+0>>I'm pleased that you found my modest comments useful.
I think some people are a little</font>
<br><font size=+0>>too quick to say a group has died out when all of them
have shifted over the another</font>
<br><font size=+0>>language. If you spend some time with Indians
you see that their culture is not dead,</font>
<br><font size=+0>>just rapidly and sometimes drastically mutated.
Scholars all over the U.S. are still</font>
<br><font size=+0>>seeing German or French culture in some areas several
generations after the group has</font>
<br><font size=+0>>completely shifted over to English. There's an
active Swedish-American historical society</font>
<br><font size=+0>>and museum in the middle of Kansas. I suppose
what differentiates these people from</font>
<br><font size=+0>>"indigenous" "natives" is that the latter do not have
the financial, political,</font>
<br><font size=+0>>educational, or technological means to accomplish cultural
preservation after losing their</font>
<br><font size=+0>>language. Movements to save languages usually
begin after it's too late. Will home</font>
<br><font size=+0>>dialects of Irish vernacular remain two generations
from now. Young people may learn book</font>
<br><font size=+0>>language in school, but that's not what the people speak
at home -- instead a kind of</font>
<br><font size=+0>>nonce "classical" form from earlier written documents,
not one that would enable a</font>
<br><font size=+0>>teenager to carry on lengthy conversations with grandpa
while the lure of rock bands etc.</font>
<br><font size=+0>>lurks outside. It seems that I heard someone discussing
similar developments in the</font>
<br><font size=+0>>Telugu area of southeastern India. Because some
areal variety was used widely in writing</font>
<br><font size=+0>>at some recent time in history, as reforms came in,
that's the variety that became</font>
<br><font size=+0>>enshrined as "the language." If it happens that
no literature or laws were written out,</font>
<br><font size=+0>>then there is no record to serve as an anchor to hold
the language in place. I'm sure I'm</font>
<br><font size=+0>>exaggerating. Have you seen my article on lingering
features of German phonology in</font>
<br><font size=+0>>Missouri? -- in Heartland English (Tim Frazer, ed.)
-- not awfully deep, but Bill Labov</font>
<br><font size=+0>>liked it.</font>
<br><font size=+0>></font>
<br><font size=+0>>I hope to see you in WashDC.</font>
<br><font size=+0>></font>
<br><font size=+0>>DMLance</font>
<br><font size=+0>></font>
<br><font color="#800000"><font size=+1>**********************************************************</font></font>
<br><font size=+1><font color="#800000">Salikoko S. Mufwene
</font><font color="#800080">s-mufwene@uchicago.edu</font></font>
<br><font size=+1><font color="#800000">University of Chicago
</font><font color="#800080">773-702-8531; FAX 773-834-0924</font></font>
<br><font color="#800000"><font size=+1>Department of Linguistics</font></font>
<br><font color="#800000"><font size=+1>1010 East 59th Street</font></font>
<br><font color="#800000"><font size=+1>Chicago, IL 60637</font></font>
<br><font color="#000000"><font size=+1><a href="http://humanities.uchicago.edu/humanities/linguistics/faculty/mufwene.html" eudora="autourl">http://humanities.uchicago.edu/humanities/linguistics/faculty/mufwene.html</a></font></font>
<br><font color="#800000"><font size=+1>**********************************************************</font></font></blockquote>
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