LL-L "Language survival" 2004.03.18 (02) [E]

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From: Mike <botas at club-internet.fr>
Subject: LL-L "Language survival" 2004.03.18 (10) [E]

Moin Lowlanders,

Ron wrote:

> Below is a newspaper article that may be of interest to many of you.

> While I agree with what is being said about Siberian and North American
> languages, it needs to be stressed that this occurs *everywhere*, and not

>...

> The Seattle Times, Thursday, March 18, 2004, p. A6:
>
> LINGUISTS IN RACE TO SAVE LANGUAGES

I 100% agree with you, Ron. For me, the key sentence in this article is:

> them dialects. Horn cited the oft-quoted comment, attributed to Yiddish
> linguist Max Weinreich, that a language is "a dialect with an army and a
> navy."

And then the quote continues:

> Harrison said languages begin to decline when native speakers view them as
> less prestigious or not accepted as widely as the dominant language in a

Why would speakers do that? To me clearly, because there is no army and
navy, literally or figuratively (status), to back up the OFFICIAL status of
a language. Wouldn´t you agree, Ron, Lowlanders, that no language that
doesn´t have EQUAL official status, PRIMARY status in at least some
important area of public life (such as primary education and/or the judicial
system and/or mass media...you name it), has NO long-term chance of
survival.

Look at history, look at the world of today...

If that is a valid conclusion, then it seems to me that any person not only
interested in studying language-related topics (99.9% of Lowlanders I
presume) but pretending to be engaged in activities of language survival
(?%), must involve her/himself  in a struggle to obtain THAT status for the
language. If one excludes the option of military struggle, then this means
political struggle.
Who challenges me on that?

Greetings to all, Mike Wintzer

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From: Críostóir Ó Ciardha <paada_please at yahoo.co.uk>
Subject: LL-L "Language survival" 2004.03.18 (10) [E]


Ron,

What needs to be pointed out is that languages don't 'die' in the same way
people do, but they fall dormant. It is relatively easy to 'resurrect' a
language, particularly if there is an unbroken line of second language
speakers (e.g., Hebrew, Cornish, Manx).

There are a great many people, including (apparently) the author of the
article you cite, who take a Social Darwinist, survival-of-the-fittest,
doomed-to-die-because-they-can't-fit-the-modern-world attitude. Every
language that is spoken is part of the 'modern world'. These people, and I
dare say a majority of the wider populace, believe that some languages, such
as those of Siberia or Native America (not to mention Australian Aboriginal
languages or many in Europe) are 'on their way out' and all we can do is
'smooth their deathbed pillow'.

Ultimately, if a language does drop out of everyday use and become dormant,
it can be raised up anew at any time, providing has been recorded
sufficiently.

Criostóir.

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