Last speaker of Bo died -- question about how many American Indian languages

[Lyle Campbell]

Here is one answer to the question in a recent 
interchange of how many American Indian languages 
there are/were:

When Europeans arrived, there were c. 280 
languages in the US, 51 families (+isolates). All 
the c.150 surviving languages are endangered.
In North America (US & Canada), of 312 known 
languages, 123 are extinct (40%). Of 58 families 
(+isolates), 29 are extinct (50%); of 26 
isolates, 20 are extinct (77%). Many others will 
soon follow.
South America: 112 families and isolates, 53 
families and 59 isolates.  c.420 languages are 
still spoken; there were once 1,491 (according to 
Loukotka 1968), 72% extinct.

Since American Indian languages were also 
mentioned in global comparison, let me add a bit 
more.
North America's 180 language families (+isolates) 
[58 North America, 10 Central America, 112 South 
America] = 51% of the linguistic diversity of the 
world, c.350 families (+isolates). The world's 
total number of language isolates: 127; in the 
Americas: 83 (65% of the world's isolates).
America's proportion of the world's linguistic 
diversity: 51% (180 of the world's total of c.350 
families (+isolates)).

More broadly, already 106 of the approximately 
350 independent language families (including 
isolates) of the world are extinct, 30%.

These figures are very misleading, however, in a 
significant sense: of the c. 150 surviving 
American Indian languages in the US, only 20 are 
being learned actively by children in traditional 
transmission, and even for many of these 20, 
every year fewer and fewer children are learning 
them. Very shortly, this set of numbers and 
percentages will change dramatically (unless 
revitalization efforts are successful) ... a 
tragedy painful beyond contemplation.

Best,
Lyle


>Incorrect assumption. Straight question. To 
>which, by nature, a straight answer is asked.
>mg
>
>Scríobh Jeroen Ruigrok van der Werven:
>
>>-On [20100205 12:01], Marion Gunn (<mailto:mgunn at egt.ie>mgunn at egt.ie) wrote:
>>
>>
>>>American languages are the most obvious examples, Jeroen. How many American
>>>languages were/are there?
>>>    
>>>
>>
>>I assume the question is rhetorical in nature?


-- 

Dr. Lyle Campbell,
Professor of Linguistics, Director, Center for American Indian Languages
Dept. of Linguistics, University of Utah, LNCO 2300
255 S. Central Campus Drive,
Salt Lake City, Utah 84112-0492 USA 
Tel. 801-581-3441 (my Ling. office), 801-587-0716 (my CAIL office)
801-581-8047 (Dept. of Linguistics), 801-587-0720 (CAIL), Fax 801-585-7351
http://linguistics.utah.edu/?module=facultyDetails&personId=167&orgId=301
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