LL-L "Language death" 2007.09.18 (01) [E]

Wed Sep 19 06:43:01 UTC 2007

L O W L A N D S - L  -  18 September 2007 - Volume 01
Song Contest: lowlands-l.net/contest/ (- 31 Dec. 2007)
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From: "Roger Thijs, Euro-Support, Inc." <roger.thijs at euro-support.be>
Subject: LL-L Language politics

Read on the Washington post website:
Regards,
Roger

 Vanishing Languages Identified Oklahoma Is Among Places Where Tongues Are
Disappearing
By Rick Weiss <http://projects.washingtonpost.com/staff/email/rick+weiss/>
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, September 19, 2007; Page A12

Oklahoma has earned the dubious distinction of being one of the five worst
"language-loss hotspots" in the world -- places where native languages are
going extinct the fastest -- according to an analysis released yesterday.

The Sooner State's inclusion in the global top five is a reminder,
researchers said, that the United States has a long history of linguistic
diversity and that the problem of language extinctions is not limited to
distant lands.

Of the approximately 7,000 languages spoken, about half are expected to
disappear in this century, said K. David Harrison, a Swarthmore College
linguist and co-director of the Enduring Voices project. That collaboration
between the National Geographic
Society<http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/National+Geographic+Society?tid=informline>and
the Living Tongues Institute for Endangered Languages of
Salem <http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/Salem?tid=informline>,
Ore., assembled the latest statistics on global language loss.

While previous analyses have focused on individual languages that have just
one or a few surviving speakers,
Harrison<http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/Harrison?tid=informline>and
his colleagues took a geographic approach, identifying where in the
world languages are disappearing fastest.
Oklahoma<http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/Oklahoma?tid=informline>and
nearby areas of the American Southwest, it turns out, have an
extremely
rich linguistic fabric because of the many Native American tribes that were
corralled there in the 1800s.

Today those languages are disappearing by the month, and with them a
treasure trove of ecological insights, culinary and medicinal secrets and
complex cultural histories, including mythologies that can teach a lot about
universal human fears and aspirations, Harrison said.

"It may seem frivolous, but mythological traditions are attempts to make
sense of the universe, and the different ways that the human mind has tried
to grapple with the unknown and the unknowable are of scientific interest,"
he said.

Following in the footsteps of early colonialists, but carrying high-quality
digital video and audio equipment instead of guns and trinkets, the Enduring
Voices project has launched a number of expeditions to document dying
languages, about half of which have no written form. Where there is interest
in preserving those tongues, it has helped create teaching materials for use
in local classrooms.

The venture's analysis, based in part on scholarly research and presented in
a telephone news conference yesterday, took three factors into account in
identifying the "hotspots": The diversity of languages spoken, the number of
living speakers and how old they are, and the extent to which the languages
have been documented.

Among those on the brink of extinction in Oklahoma is Yuchi, a language
native to the same-named tribe from
Tennessee<http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/Tennessee?tid=informline>and
believed to be unrelated to any other in the world. It is spoken by
just
a handful of elders because youngsters in government boarding schools were
punished if they veered from English. Yuchi tales tell of Earth's creation
from water with the help of a crawfish and the emergence of the tribe's
forebears from a drop of menstrual blood in the sky.

The other four hotspots are:

¿ Northern Australia<http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/Australia?tid=informline>,
where project members recorded the last known speaker of Amurdag -- a man
who remembers about 100 words that he last heard spoken by his now-deceased
father.
¿ Central South
America<http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/South+America?tid=informline>,
where the Kallawaya of
Bolivia<http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/Bolivia?tid=informline>have
for at least 400 years maintained a secret language about medicinal
plants.

¿ The Northwest Pacific Plateau, where there is but a single woman who can
still speak Siletz Dee-ni, the last of 27 languages once spoken on
Oregon<http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/Oregon?tid=informline>'s
Siletz reservation.

¿ Eastern Siberia<http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/Siberia?tid=informline>,
where a high proportion of the 23 known tongues are unrelated to any other
languages in the world.

Language can reveal a lot about how a culture organizes information. In the
Paraguayan Lengua language, for example, the word "11" means literally
"arrived at the foot, one," meaning "counted 10 fingers plus one toe." The
word for "20" means "finished the feet."

In Siberia's Nivkh language, each number can be said 26 ways, depending on
what is being counted.

About 80 percent of the world's people speak 83 languages, while about 3,500
languages are spoken by just 0.2 percent of the world's population. Attempts
to commune with those minorities can turn unintentionally comedic, said
Gregory Anderson, co-director of the Enduring Voices project.

Talking to a woman who is one of the 20 remaining Bardi speakers in
Australia, Anderson once mispronounced an "r," which resulted in him asking,
"What kangaroo are you from?" instead of "What country are you from?"

No interpreter was needed to understand the Bardi laughter that followed.
----------

From: R. F. Hahn <sassisch at yahoo.com>
Subject: Language death

Thanks for sharing that, Roger.

Here's an explanatory note for those that aren't aware of it already.

Oklahoma's particular wealth in American languages is due to the infamous
"Trail of Tears" (*Nunna daul Isunyi* "The trail on which we cried" in
Tsalagi/Cherokee) and other "Indian Removal" efforts of the early to mid
19th century. This was a series of forced migrations of indigenous nations
from the southeastern states to Oklahoma (which then was considered
practically worthless, and the land allocated to the new arrivals tended to
be the worst of what there was).

Much has been made of the removal of the "Five Civilized Tribes": Ahniyvwiya
* * Altamaha ((Cherokee), Chikasha (Chickasaw), Chahtah (Choctaw), Mvskoke
(Creek) and Seminole. However many smaller nations were associated with or
lumped together with them, such as theYamasee), Apalachee, Hitchiti,
Hothliwahi (Ullibahali), Impsaktea, Intcutwalipa, Itawa, Iswa (Catawba),
Kusa, Ocfuskee, Pallachacola (Apalachicola), Tuckabatchee, Tsoyaha (Yuchi),
Waxhaw, and Xualla (Cheraw). So the picture is far more complex when it
comes to displaced indigenous communities in Oklahoma. Because of all the
lumping and simplifying, some of the groups and their languages and cultures
ended up being minorities among minorities among minorities ... and it
should surprise no one that their survival chances have been even poorer
than those of the better-known and locally dominant ones. The Indian Removal
effort did enormous and lasting damage indeed.

Regards,
Reinhard/Ron
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