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PS. to last wk's
correspondence below, as I'm pasing this query back to the
Unicode Consortium via list
<a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="mailto:unicode@unicode.org"><unicode@unicode.org></a>
to request a quantitative reply re
"the actual number of American languages whose full character sets are
currently supported by Unicode and an inventory of the names of those
languages" (which stats I'll be sure to fwd to EL-L once I receive
them).<br>
<br>
Thanks, Ed, for the approximate figures you supply below, to which I am
appending a more detailed answer I received via the <a
class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated"
href="mailto:ENDANGERED-LANGUAGES-L@LISTSERV.LINGUISTLIST.ORG">ENDANGERED-LANGUAGES-L@LISTSERV.LINGUISTLIST.ORG</a>.
<br>
<br>
Mine was only a quantitive question, seeking only a straight answer
list <a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="mailto:unicode@unicode.org"><unicode@unicode.org></a>.
However, so much more
has emerged since, such as the msg below, which I am grateful to see,
because, for
any language to be (made) safe, it needs to be (made) safe in its own
land, which fact Professor Campbell's msg below underlines so well,
seeing time is not
on the side of those American language communities which are fighting
for survival as we speak.<br>
<br>
As one NSAI advisor whose interest in ISO 10646 goes back 20 years and
more, I
have sort of taken it for granted that all of the characters need to
write American languages (both living and dead), have by now been
safely encoded in that Standard and, if so (even if not), that the
Unicode
Consortium can supply a final figure for the actual number of American
languages it currently serves.<br>
<br>
As to the number of unwriten American
languages
(both living
and dead), some approximation to that question's answer would be in US
Govt documents about the clearances or in records of the US Library of
Congress
dealing with Americans displaced or otherwise disempowered by colonial
action and all that followed after, similarly to the Highland
clearances on this side of the Atlantic, but a start is to list the
names of all of the American languages
whose writing systems are currently fully supported by Unicode, or not,
as the case may be (someone said it doesn't support Mayan writing, for
starters, but I do not know whether that is true).<br>
<br>
Sincerely,<br>
mg<br>
<br>
Scríobh Ed Trager:
<blockquote
cite="mid:416e2cf11002051027k66a202d4r64921ddc2bbef3c1@mail.gmail.com"
type="cite">
<pre wrap="">Hi, Marion,
Yes, 300 is the approximate number for North America. If you include
Meso and South America, I think it goes up to around 800.
For North America, only about 30 survive. But I'm not sure how
healthy those 30 are. Some are doing fine. Others I don't know.
Unfortunately, I really don't know as much about the situation in
North America as I would like to.
Maybe someday I will have more time to investigate and learn more!
Best Wishes -- Ed
</pre>
</blockquote>
Lyle Campbell wrote:
<blockquote cite="mid:a06240806c79202211f98@%5B192.168.1.2%5D"
type="cite">
<div><font color="#000000">Here is one answer to the question in a
recent interchange of how many American Indian languages there
are/were:</font></div>
<div><font color="#000000"><br>
</font></div>
<div><font color="#000000">When Europeans arrived, there were c. 280
languages in the US, 51 families (+isolates). All the c.150 surviving
languages are endangered.</font></div>
<div><font color="#000000">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.</font></div>
<div><font color="#000000">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.</font></div>
<div><font color="#000000"><br>
</font></div>
<div><font color="#000000">Since American Indian languages were also
mentioned in global comparison, let me add a bit more.</font></div>
<div><font color="#000000">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).</font></div>
<div><font color="#000000">America's proportion of the world's
linguistic diversity: 51% (180 of the world's total of c.350 families
(+isolates)).</font></div>
<div><font color="#000000"><br>
</font></div>
<div><font color="#000000">More broadly, already 106 of the
approximately 350 independent language families (including isolates)
of the world are extinct, 30%.</font></div>
<div><font color="#000000"><br>
</font></div>
<div><font color="#000000">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.</font></div>
<div><font color="#000000"><br>
</font></div>
<div><font color="#000000">Best,</font></div>
<div><font color="#000000">Lyle</font></div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<blockquote type="cite" cite="">Incorrect assumption. Straight
question.
To which, by nature, a straight answer is asked.<br>
mg<br>
<br>
Scríobh Jeroen Ruigrok van der Werven:<br>
<blockquote type="cite" cite=""><tt>-On [20100205 12:01], Marion
Gunn
(</tt><a moz-do-not-send="true" href="mailto:mgunn@egt.ie"><tt>mgunn@egt.ie</tt></a><tt>)
wrote:<br>
</tt><br>
<blockquote type="cite" cite=""><tt>American languages are the
most
obvious examples, Jeroen. How many American<br>
languages were/are there?<br>
</tt><br>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite" cite=""><tt><br>
I assume the question is rhetorical in nature?</tt></blockquote>
</blockquote>
<div><br>
</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<x-sigsep></x-sigsep>
<pre>--
</pre>
<div><font color="#000000" size="-1"><br>
<font face="Arial Narrow"><b>Dr. Lyle Campbell,</b><br>
Professor of Linguistics, Director, Center for American Indian
Languages<br>
Dept. of Linguistics, University of Utah, LNCO 2300<br>
255 S. Central Campus Drive,<br>
Salt Lake City, Utah 84112-0492 USA <br>
Tel. 801-581-3441 (my Ling. office), 801-587-0716 (my CAIL office)<br>
801-581-8047 (Dept. of Linguistics), 801-587-0720 (CAIL), Fax
801-585-7351<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="http://linguistics.utah.edu/?module=facultyDetails&personId=167">http://linguistics.utah.edu/?module=facultyDetails&personId=167</a><span></span>&orgId=301</font></font><br>
</div>
</blockquote>
<br>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt; color: blue;"
lang="EN-GB">Marion
Gunn * eGteo (Estab.1991)<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt; color: blue;"
lang="EN-GB">27
Páirc an Fhéithlinn, Baile an<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt; color: blue;"
lang="EN-GB">Bhóthair,
An Charraig Dhubh,<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt; color: blue;"
lang="EN-GB">Co.
Átha Cliath, Éire/Ireland<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt; color: blue;"
lang="EN-GB">*
<a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:mgunn@egt.ie">mgunn@egt.ie</a>
* <a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:eamonn@egt.ie">eamonn@egt.ie</a>
*</span><span style="color: teal;" lang="EN-GB"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
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