<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN">
<html>
<head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=ISO-8859-1">
<title></title>
</head>
<body>
Well, I think that one thing you are getting at is the value of having every
language being used by its native speakers with the fullest possible range
of uses. I've often thought of how lucky speakers of major, official languages
are: languages as widely varying in size and "importance" as Icelandic and
Mandarin Chinese, Mongolian and Spanish are all used by most of their native
speakers for all or nearly all of the possible functions of language: formal
and informal registers, social situations, primary, secondary, higher education,
government, etc., etc., etc. It is not that these languages are any more
expressive than are languages which are used for fewer functions, but their
native speakers can, potentially, do anything with them. They are never
forced to switch to another language because they never learned to use their
own languages in that way. In contrast, when you have people who are only
able to use their native languages for a limited number of purposes, due
to limited use of those languages, and yet who do not have anything close
to native-like fluency in the official or dominant languages of their society,
than I can see how this puts those people at a disadvantage. <br>
<br>
I do think that the idea of linguistic impoverishment needs to be dealt with
carefully, however, as it has been misused too many times. It is often,
for example, used as a label for speakers of minority dialects who simply
don't speak the favored variety of the language well, which doesn't mean
that they aren't perfectly fluent in their own languages. It is also often
used as an excuse not to develop minority languages: the whole "X language
doesn't have a term for nuclear physics or ethnic cleansing, therefore it
can't possibly be used in the modern world," which totally ignores the ability
of all languages to adapt to changing culture and technology. <br>
<br>
But, at any rate, this kind of adaptation is done through using language,
and it is when languages are not used that they fail to develop, or, as in
some of the cases you mention, the native speakers may not know words that
the language actually possesses, or, at least, formerly possessed. It all
leads back to the same conclusion: people should be able to use their own
native tongues for the widest range of possible functions. In the real world,
of course, this is not always practical or possible, but it is still a worthy
goal.<br>
<br>
Don Osborn wrote:<br>
<blockquote type="cite" cite="mid02a301c3c34c$02e99860$5fe4fbc1@gktg001">
<pre wrap="">Thank you Matthew (very belatedly). I think you are right in disaggregating
the two elements of what I called language impoverishment as you do. I
wonder however if there are not more connections between them. IOW, if you
raise a generation of people with deficiencies in both the mother tongue and
the (generally external) language of instruction, what effect does it have
on society-wide range of expressiveness and the vigor of the first language?
In a large population, say Cantonese speakers or Hausa speakers or maybe
even Dine speakers (just to take 3 examples), you will generally have a core
of educated people and perhaps a cultural production which operate with a
more sophisticated knowledge in the language. (Today, with the potentials
of ICT, this level can be brought more effectively out to more users.)
In a smaller population, even when actively using the language, is there the
same reservoir or performance of the language's richness? When a few key
elders pass away how much knowledge, including perhaps obscure but important
vocabulary etc., goes with them? (Amadou Hampate Ba's famous metaphor was
that when an elder dies a library burns.) The reason I ask is that I have
encountered people who tell me there is no word for such-and-such in their
language, but from earlier documentation I knew/found out there was. How
many other expressions, turns of phrase etc. that mean something important
but not necessarily encountered every day, or could be creatively applied to
something new, are lost without being recorded (or recorded but not returned
through education to the speakers through education)? ...with the result
being a kind of Newspeak by default (without any Orwellian authority to plan
it).
I guess the matter would have to be settled by some detailed ground level
research. If you look at satellite images of vegetation in the Sahel it
seems like the desert is now retreating (as per a news item not too long
ago), but down here on the ground the biodiversity is definitely less,
larger trees are fewer, and the vegetation index shows a shift of species.
The analogy may not hold for what is happening with language, but I'd be
more comfortable knowing for sure...
It may be that what happens is an impoverishment of expression and some loss
of vocabulary that is not readily evident and this goes on slowly for a
period, and that this is related to socioeconomic, demographic, political
etc. changes. And that as that regression continues, at some point it
reaches a "stalling point" or some such threshhold where we can say that the
language is clearly losing structures / expressiveness as in your second
category (corresponding perhaps with another categorization such as
moribund).
Relating all this to Mia's message a while back and my reply, it seems there
are several angles from different disciplines to considering links among
various combinations of language "health" & survival, speakers' skills &
range of expression, and individual & social wellbeing, but no synthetic
approach to seeking a more unified or at least connected understanding of
what's going on. One particular topic already brought up - that of people
growing up with what amounts to impaired bi/multilingualism (limited
expression/skills in both/all languages spoken; we know of course that the
reason for such impairment is not the multiplicity of languages but a
reflection of the education approach or lack of same) - is something I
hadn't given much thought to until recently. And now I don't seem to find
much discussion of it, let alone its relations to other hotbutton topics
like language survival.
A lot of heavy thinking remains in all this but the more I get into it
(slowly, being preoccupied with other concerns), the more important it
seems.
Don
----- Original Message -----
From: "Matthew Ward" <a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="mailto:mward@LUNA.CC.NM.US"><mward@LUNA.CC.NM.US></a>
To: <a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="mailto:ILAT@LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU"><ILAT@LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU></a>
Sent: Monday, November 10, 2003 7:25 PM
Subject: Re: Language impoverishment
</pre>
<blockquote type="cite">
<pre wrap="">I'm sorry that I can't point you to any studies, but I wanted to comment
that I wonder if there are not two separate things going on here:
First, there is the phenomenon of people who fail to learn the official
language used in school sufficiently well, yet the non-use of their own
mother tongues in education and other contexts means that they lack
vocabulary to use those languages for many contexts. (It is not, of
course, that the mother tongues cannot develop, or have not developed
the sufficient vocabulary, but if ones education is in another language,
one might not be able to use ones own mother tongue in certain contexts).
At any rate, the result is people who, in some sense, do not speak any
language fluently. One context I've read about this phenomenon is in
Hong Kong, a decade or more ago--many high school students were not
particularly fluent in English, especially in terms of grammar, but,
while Cantonese remained the language they would use at a native level
of fluency for nearly all social functions, they were unable to discuss
many school subjects in it, since as it was not used in education past a
certain level in some schools. This was actually one of the arguments
used when the decision was made to make Cantonese the main medium of
instruction in HK--I think the argument was something to the effect that
it would be better to gain complete fluency in Cantonese and to learn
English more as a foreign language, rather than to have people who had
deficiencies in both languages.
I've also seen this in Taiwan, where people who lacked anything near
native-like fluency in Mandarin Chinese also had a low level of advanced
vocabulary in the own mother tongues, and here in Northeastern New
Mexico, where many native speakers of Spanish express insecurity about
their ability in English, yet they clearly lack the vocabulary in
Spanish to discuss certain subjects. Immigrants everywhere may have the
some problem--they do not achieve native-like fluency in the language(s)
of the countries they have moved to, yet they may also lack sufficient
fluency in their own native languages, largely because their acquisition
of vocabulary largely stopped after they immigrated.
Second, when you have languages in a totally different
situation--languages that are truly on the brink, often with only a
small number of older people who speak it natively, you see not only the
loss of vocabulary, but also the seeming loss and simplification of
grammatical structures. Of course, all languages are known to change in
this way, even the healthiest ones, but in these cases of dying
languages, it does not seem that you are dealing with a change in which
one structure is replacing another, but with a situation where the
structures are not being replaced, and the language may actually be
losing its expressiveness. This is something that, despite popular
perceptions of language being "in decline," does not normally happen to
any language. Indeed, this real loss of expressiveness seems to only
occur when a language is truly dying.
To me, the first phenomenon is an excellent argument for mother-tongue
education, and the second is a subject of study for linguists, as well
as a warning sign of language death. It is certainly possible that
certain individuals might be affected by both at the same time, but I do
believe that they are separate issues. In many situations in Africa,
where people who speak large and otherwise fairly healthy indigenous
tongues, yet are educated in colonial languages such as French, English
or Portuguese, then probably the first issue is relevant, but for those
who speak dying languages (which are, as I understand, usually replaced
by larger African languages, not by the colonial languages) the second
might apply as well.
Don Osborn wrote:
</pre>
<blockquote type="cite">
<pre wrap="">I came upon a phrase earlier this year that was used by the author John
Marsden in a workshop: "Language impoverishment can lead to frustration,
impotence and/or rage" (at the site
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.pvet.vic.edu.au/boyswebsite/conference.html">http://www.pvet.vic.edu.au/boyswebsite/conference.html</a> ). This was a new
take on a phenomenon that I had been thinking a lot about in the African
context (young people who learn neither their maternal languages well nor
the official languages used in school). Further research found that
</pre>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
<pre wrap=""><!---->another
</pre>
<blockquote type="cite">
<blockquote type="cite">
<pre wrap="">author, Walker Percy, wrote that one result of language's impoverishment
</pre>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
<pre wrap=""><!---->is
</pre>
<blockquote type="cite">
<blockquote type="cite">
<pre wrap="">"a radical impoverishment of human relations."
My thinking is that well before we get to the point of concern about a
language's survival, it starts to lose vocabulary and range of expression
and creativity: it becomes impoverished. But more than being a stage in
</pre>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
<pre wrap=""><!---->what
</pre>
<blockquote type="cite">
<blockquote type="cite">
<pre wrap="">may ultimately end up as extinction, language impoverishment seems to
</pre>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
<pre wrap=""><!---->have
</pre>
<blockquote type="cite">
<blockquote type="cite">
<pre wrap="">broader social and psychological implications beyond cultural survival
</pre>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
<pre wrap=""><!---->and
</pre>
<blockquote type="cite">
<blockquote type="cite">
<pre wrap="">language policy.
I wrote Mr. Marsden, who kindly replied that his statement was the result
</pre>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
<pre wrap=""><!---->of
</pre>
<blockquote type="cite">
<blockquote type="cite">
<pre wrap="">many years of observation and not formal research (which should not
depreciate the value of such observation I would hasten to add!). But I
would be interested in learning more about research anyone is doing on
language impoverishment in communities and its effects on individual and
community life.
Don Osborn, Ph.D. <a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:dzo@bisharat.net">dzo@bisharat.net</a>
*Bisharat! A language, technology & development initiative
*Bisharat! Initiative langues - technologie - développement
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.bisharat.net">http://www.bisharat.net</a>
</pre>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
<pre wrap=""><!---->
</pre>
</blockquote>
<br>
</body>
</html>