ELL: definitions for various terms re: minority languages

[Marion Gunn]

*** EOOH ***
Return-Path: <owner-endangered-languages-l at carmen.murdoch.edu.au>
X-Authentication-Warning: carmen.murdoch.edu.au: majodomo set sender to
owner-endangered-languages-l at carmen.murdoch.edu.au using -f
Date: Thu, 18 Mar 1999 20:49:53 +0000
From: Marion Gunn <mgunn at ucd.ie>
Organization: ucd <http://listserv.heanet.ie/>
To: endangered-languages-l at carmen.murdoch.edu.au
Subject: Re: ELL: definitions for various terms re: minority languages
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Sender: owner-endangered-languages-l at carmen.murdoch.edu.au
Precedence: bulk
Reply-To: endangered-languages-l at carmen.murdoch.edu.au

Jeff ALLEN wrote:
> >...
> And here are some excerpts from various recent papers (as you can tell, I
> have a very good electronic collection of materials).
>...

So you have!

>
> where Minority languages tend to be multiple in a country where there is a
> different majority official language.  In the UK, English is the official,
> majority language, but there are many, many minority languages (East and
> West Indian, Mid-East, etc).
>
> ____
>
> This message will certainly stir up some discussion on the topic.
>
> Best,
>
> Jeff

It should! Now,ill you dip into that marvellous electronic collection of
yours, Jeff, and come up with a list of organizations which further the
cause of small linguistic communties. Please don't confine yourself to
'charity' organizations, but include official state, semi-state and
self-help solidarity groups.

Even if you can come up with only a dozen or so off the top or your
head, as it were, for starters, perhaps more on ELL can help fill out
the list. Then we can sort them into sizes, according to estimated size
or turnover, then according to whether they are mainly outsider or
insider run, sorted according to languages served, and then according to
purpose (main purpose, subsidiary, including missionary). These are just
a few possible elements to identify, among many.

That should allow enough scope to create a good database to cover all
possible groups involved in language maintenance.

With best wishes,
Marion Gunn
----
Endangered-Languages-L Forum: endangered-languages-l at carmen.murdoch.edu.au
Web pages http://carmen.murdoch.edu.au/lists/endangered-languages-l/
Subscribe/unsubscribe and other commands: majordomo at carmen.murdoch.edu.au
----