criteria for endangerment

[Allan Wechsler]

	    We had a long discussion on this issue about six months ago.
	    (Moderator, is this forum archived?  If so, can participants
	    access
	    the archive?)  At the risk of repeating some of the comments that
	    were
	    made then, I think it is important to remember the following:

	    Several overlapping constituencies rally around the endangered
	    languages banner.  There are linguists (and folklorists) for whom
	    languages (and the cultural artifacts they convey) are precious
	    and
	    irreplaceable objects of study; human rights advocates for whom
	    language oppression is only a symptom of broader oppression of
	    minority cultures; speakers with a personal love for their mother
	    tongues; and probably other I apologize for neglecting.

	    Although there are large areas of consensus between these
	    costituencies, there are also salient differences, and these
	    differences lead to different definitions of endangerment.

	    To take a hypothetical example, a population of Panjabi speakers
	    struggling under some South American dictatorship is of much less
	    concern to a linguist than the imminent extinction of, say, the
	    Arta
	    tongue on its home ground in the Philippines, while to a human
	    rights
	    activist the nearly painless Tagalogization of twenty Arta is
	    simply
	    not as pressing as the brutal racism, oppression and torture of
	    the
	    (hypothetical, I remind you) South American Panjabis.

	    There is still a wide area of consensus among all these
	    constituencies; unfortunately, a clear definition of language
	    endangerment probably isn't part of that overlap.

	    (Perhaps this is why traffic on this list has been so light.  We
	    seem
	    to be having trouble finding anything to say besides "Language
	    endangerment?  Oooh, bad thing.")

	    -A

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	    =========================================================================
	    Date: Fri, 6 Dec 1996 10:11:11 +0800
	    To: endangered-languages-l at carmen.murdoch.edu.au
	    From: atkinson at cleo.murdoch.edu.au (Roger Atkinson)
	    Subject: Re: criteria for endangerment
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	    >We had a long discussion on this issue about six months ago.
	    >(Moderator, is this forum archived?  If so, can participants
	    >access
	    >the archive?)  At the risk of repeating some of the comments that
	    >were
	    >made then, I think it is important to remember the following:

	    Yes, endangered-languages-l at carmen is archived, see:

	    http://carmen.murdoch.edu.au/lists/endangered-languages-l/

	    However, to date I've not been able to obtain archival files for
	    the list's
	    previous host, so on carmen you have only nov96 and nov97 at
	    present. If
	    any subscriber has a good collection of previous messages, please
	    email to
	    me (collected into one file, not individual messages!!) and I will
	    put them
	    up - a partial archive is better than none at all.

	    Roger.
	    majordomo-owner

	    Dr Roger Atkinson
	    Snr Lect in Educational Technology, Academic Services Unit,
	    Murdoch University, Murdoch WA 6150, Australia.
	    Voice +61 9 360 6840 fax +61 9 310 4929 Email:
	    atkinson at cleo.murdoch.edu.au
	    http://cleo.murdoch.edu.au/asu/edtech/edtech.html


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