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

Fri Feb 5 18:43:29 UTC 2010

Lyle,

This is a wonderful summary. Thanks very much!

I should say that there are some signs of encouragement in specific South American cases. The Piraha, for example, were about 90 people according to some estimates, in 1959. In the sixties that estimate was revised up to 150. In the 1990s, I estimated their numbers had grown to 350. In my last two field trips, with several employees of the Brazilian National Indian Foundation - FUNAI, we estimated 700-1000 Piraha! All still monolingual (though there is now growing pressure, unlike anything in their past that I am aware of) to learn Portuguese. Not sure how long their culture will continue as I have known it, but they are thriving and have clearly improved dramatically over the past 50 years.

I wonder if there are other stories like this? What might they have to teach us?

I think that the Pirahas' successful growth is partially the result of medical help that they have gotten from many people and organizations. This started with SIL missionaries in the 1950s, but, much more significantly, from help that they have been receiving since about 1999 from the Brazilian government (FUNASA in particular) and the Catholic missionary organization, CIMI, since the mid-1980s. Along with this, their land was demarcated (by me and a FUNAI team in February 1985) and this reservation has been respected and enforced much more in the last ten years, thanks to a new FUNAI presence nearer their reservation and to FUNAI's full-time presence in the area. Much of this has been helped by the additional publicity that the Pirahas have received (though the Pirahas themselves know nothing about this so far as I know, publicity about them has made some in the government more vigilant in various senses).

This language may change, etc. because it is now experiencing the new forces (ironically, the very FUNAI presence that otherwise helps them) to speak Portuguese. But overall, this is a tremendous success story that has been a real pleasure for me to watch and, to a lesser degree, participate in. I for one would love to hear other stories and what lessons people think there are in other turn-arounds like this. The FUNAI, FUNASA, and CIMI in particular deserve a tremendous amount of thanks for the work that they are doing in the Amazon.

Dan

On 5 Feb 2010, at 12:39, Lyle Campbell wrote:

> 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 (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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