<span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"> </span><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">L O W L A N D S - L - 18 September 2007 - Volume 01</span><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">
<span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">Song Contest: <a href="http://lowlands-l.net/contest/">lowlands-l.net/contest/</a> (- 31 Dec. 2007)</span><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">
=========================================================================</span><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">From: </span>
<span id="_user_roger.thijs@euro-support.be" style="color: rgb(0, 104, 28); font-family: arial,sans-serif;">"Roger Thijs, Euro-Support, Inc." <<a href="mailto:roger.thijs@euro-support.be">roger.thijs@euro-support.be
</a>></span><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">Subject: LL-L Language politics</span><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">
<div style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;" bgcolor="#ffffff">
<div><font size="2">Read on the Washington post website:</font></div>
<div><font size="2">Regards,</font></div>
<div><font size="2">Roger</font></div>
<div> </div>
<div><font size="2">
<h1><font size="4">Vanishing Languages Identified</font></h1>
<h2><font size="4">Oklahoma Is Among Places Where Tongues Are
Disappearing</font></h2></font></div>
<div><font size="2">By <a title="Send an e-mail to Rick Weiss" href="http://projects.washingtonpost.com/staff/email/rick+weiss/" target="_blank" onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)">Rick
Weiss</a></font></div>
<div>Washington Post Staff Writer<br>Wednesday, September 19, 2007; Page
A12</div>
<div> </div>
<div><font size="2">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.</font></div>
<div>
<p>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.</p></div>
<div>
<p><font size="2">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 </font><a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/National+Geographic+Society?tid=informline" target="_blank" onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)"><font size="2">
National Geographic Society</font></a><font size="2"> and
the Living Tongues Institute for Endangered Languages of </font><a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/Salem?tid=informline" target="_blank" onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)"><font size="2">
Salem</font></a><font size="2">, Ore., assembled the latest
statistics on global language loss.</font></p>
<p><font size="2">While previous analyses have focused on individual languages
that have just one or a few surviving speakers, </font><a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/Harrison?tid=informline" target="_blank" onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)"><font size="2">
Harrison</font></a><font size="2"> and his colleagues took
a geographic approach, identifying where in the world languages are disappearing
fastest. </font><a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/Oklahoma?tid=informline" target="_blank" onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)"><font size="2">Oklahoma</font></a><font size="2"> 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.</font></p>
<p><font size="2">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.</font></p>
<p><font size="2">"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.</font></p>
<p><font size="2">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.</font></p>
<p><font size="2">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.</font></p>
<p><font size="2">Among those on the brink of extinction in Oklahoma is Yuchi, a
language native to the same-named tribe from </font><a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/Tennessee?tid=informline" target="_blank" onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)"><font size="2">
Tennessee</font></a><font size="2"> 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.</font></p>
<p><font size="2">The other four hotspots are:</font></p>
<p><font size="2">¿ Northern </font><a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/Australia?tid=informline" target="_blank" onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)"><font size="2">Australia</font>
</a><font size="2">, 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.</font></p></div>
<div><font size="2">¿ Central </font><a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/South+America?tid=informline" target="_blank" onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)"><font size="2">South America
</font></a><font size="2">, where the
Kallawaya of </font><a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/Bolivia?tid=informline" target="_blank" onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)"><font size="2">Bolivia</font></a><font size="2">
have for at least 400
years maintained a secret language about medicinal plants.</font></div>
<div><font size="2">
</font><p><font size="2">¿ 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 <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/Oregon?tid=informline" target="_blank" onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)">Oregon
</a>'s Siletz reservation.</font></p>
<p><font size="2">¿ <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/Siberia?tid=informline" target="_blank" onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)">Eastern Siberia</a>, where a high proportion of the 23 known tongues
are unrelated to any other languages in the world.</font></p>
<p><font size="2">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."</font></p>
<p><font size="2">In Siberia's Nivkh language, each number can be said 26 ways, depending on
what is being counted.</font></p>
<p><font size="2">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.</font></p>
<p><font size="2">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?"</font></p>
<p><font size="2">No interpreter was needed to understand the Bardi laughter that
followed.</font></p></div></div><span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">----------</span><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">
From: R. F. Hahn <<a href="mailto:sassisch@yahoo.com" target="_blank" onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)">sassisch@yahoo.com</a>><br>Subject: Language death<br><br>Thanks for sharing that, Roger.
<br><br>Here's an explanatory note for those that aren't aware of it already.<br><br>Oklahoma's particular wealth in American languages is due to the infamous "Trail of Tears" (</span><i style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">
Nunna daul Isunyi</i><span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"> "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).
</span><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">Much has been made of the removal of the "Five Civilized Tribes": Ahniyvwiya
</span><i style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"> </i> Altamaha (<span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">(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.
</span><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">Regards,</span><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">
Reinhard/Ron</span><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;"><br style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">