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<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Dear colleagues,</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>I have been working since 20 years as linguist
and psycholinguist with all minority( = lesser used) languages LSU) in
the Romance field, particularly with Sardinian (last book 2005: Methods and
Techniques with Learning and Teaching Sardinian, Cagliari, Della Torre, <A
href="mailto:dellatorre@tiscali.it">dellatorre@tiscali.it</A> ). I can tell you
that I still agree with the formulaic sentence of Claude Levi-Strauss: minority
languages disappear more rapidly than radioactive particles. If there is no
concrete support from administrations (in obligatory learning at school, if
possible before 6; in public use etc.), no corpus and status planning
(Einar Haugen), no Authority in language (both Milroy), the decay will be
unescapable (J. Vendryes: a language does not die by itself, it is
a prolonged lost of interest, of passion which leads to its decay). In some
recent experiments conducted by a team I lead we have noticed (1) a fairly
good competence in the LSL when kids of 4-6 were administered some
psycholinguistic tests (auditory verbal learning tests, narrative tests,
comprehension and production tests), even when they had not received any direct
education from the parents, (2) a tendency to boost performance in
metacognitive and metalinguistic tests (for instance in bilingual picture-word
selection tasks, or in phoneme discrimination and non-words discrimination) when
sardinian and italian were both involved in tasks. We arguably
suggest that this "L3 competence" (= neither L1, nor L2 competence)
clearly demonstrates that the community acts as a positive substitute
of first language acquisition. Hence, we must strive for a gradual
improvement of interaction between children without first l. acquisition and
networks which within the community still use actively the LSU. This
sociolinguistic-anthropologic project may help us to make up for the lack
of a clear-cut and deep intervention in language politics, and in
the end in the psycholinguistic domain.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Best wishes to all of you for Christmas and
New Year</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Bonas Pascas de Nadale e Salude e Trigu pro s'Annu
Nou</FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Eduardo Blasco Ferrer</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>full-prof Linguistics,
Psycho/Neurolinguistics</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Univ. Cagliari, Sardinia,
Italy</FONT></DIV></BODY></HTML>