Are dying languages worth saving? (fwd link)

[D. Gloumbia]

I respect Mufwene very much as a linguist, and I know people who know him
well and have worked with him even on issues involving endangered languages,
where he has been more helpful than one might guess, as well as encouraging
the study of diverse languages and of young scholars working on these
topics. He has read a lot (though not very much cultural theory, i think)
and knows a lot. But I nevertheless find his writing on the topic
offensively accepting of an economic (and bio-evolutionary, which makes it
too much like US neocon philosophy) metaphor that he knows better than to
apply to a non-economic (indeed, *sui generis*) phenomenon like language.
The tone of his writings on the topic is not progressive, and not
sympathetic to any of the parties concerned about language loss. Finally,
his work, like too much of the good work on endangerment, fails to target
the #1 issue which I think needs to be addressed: what Foucault would call
the "positive power" created by major langauges that makes it look like they
are "more than" or "more modern than" others, *and that* it is therefore
"more modern" to lose the family language and take up English (or Mandarin,
or Hindi, or Spanish, or Russian, or...) relatively exclusively. There are
too many economic ("competition") and bad pseudo-biology (again,
"competition") metaphors in the writing on this subject. I think we need to
ask more and more how to *undo *this "positive power" of major languages, in
addition to talking about saving languages.

I also really despair, I'll admit, when thoughtful academics (like Mufwene,
& maybe even the blogger) think a good use of their energies is to
discourage people from viewing the loss of languages as a critical issue for
our world today. it is more, not less, critical than outsiders think; it
does no good to give them any reason at all to dismiss the topic. In this
sense, while I in no way protest Mufwene's *right* to do such work, I am
forced to question its point and its motivation.

David

On Wed, Sep 15, 2010 at 1:18 AM, Phillip E Cash Cash <
cashcash at email.arizona.edu> wrote:

> 14 September 2010
> UK
>
> Are dying languages worth saving?
>
> How people are trying to preserve endangered languages
>
> Language experts are gathering at a university in the UK to discuss saving
> the world's endangered languages. But is it worth keeping alive dialects
> that are sometimes only spoken by a handful of people, asks Tom de Castella?
>
> "Language is the dress of thought," Samuel Johnson once said.
>
> About 6,000 different languages are spoken around the world. But the
> Foundation for Endangered Languages estimates that between 500 and 1,000 of
> those are spoken by only a handful of people. And every year the world loses
> around 25 mother tongues. That equates to losing 250 languages over a decade
> - a sad prospect for some.
>
> Access full article below:
> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-11304255
>



-- 
David Golumbia
dgolumbia at gmail.com
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