FW: Endangered Languages in Museum

Mon Sep 2 10:40:44 UTC 2013

Dear all,

I am curator and linguist and I'm working on documentation and musealisaton
on endangered languages in Croatia since 2001.

I don't understand what's wrong with coffin metaphor? Aren't we talking
about dying languages? They are dying together with their culture. Man is
dying, do you say to the children that the dead man is sleeping? If so, why?
Children should be tought that dying is a part of everday life! Why
euphemism like sleeping, or tree or other suggested metaphors? It is the
role of museum to teach the children (and adults too), not to telling them
fairy tales. We must prepare children for life, or is it idea to keep the
children away from everyday life?

Kind regards,

Irena Kolbas

From: Endangered Languages List
[mailto:ENDANGERED-LANGUAGES-L at listserv.linguistlist.org] On Behalf Of
Johanna Laakso
Sent: Monday, September 02, 2013 6:37 AM
To: ENDANGERED-LANGUAGES-L at LISTSERV.LINGUISTLIST.ORG
Subject: Re: Endangered Languages in Museum

Dear All,

thanks for the interesting discussion! I also like the tree metaphor (which,
of course, may be overused as well, see e.g.
http://www.hf.uio.no/multiling/english/ ).

But, whatever the metaphor, I think that the greatest challenge in spreading
information about endangered languages is avoiding "the extinction
narrative". Any metaphor taken from nature is especially prone to this
vulgar Darwinist idea of some languages "being less fit for survival", which
means that their extinction is natural and expectable and due to some laws
of nature. The extinction narrative also often comes with an expert-centred,
static and reified idea of language: it is up to linguists, the Great White
Hunters, to "save the language", and a language is "saved" when it is
documented and a grammar, a dictionary and a critical mass of texts and/or
recordings are available. (Of course, it is part of the truth that a
language properly documented and with a viable standard may well have more
prestige and better chances to survive.) 

So any research into endangered languages is readily presented in the media
as a "rescue mission", although, as we all know, the truth is that no
well-meaning outsider can save a language if the speakers themselves have
decided to give it up. On the other hand, emphasising the importance of
speaker agency should not mean denying the reality of inequality,
discrimination and oppression: if speakers give up their language, they do
it for what they feel to be a compelling reason and often silently mourn the
loss of the old language.

Perhaps a garden would be an even better metaphor than a tree. A healthy
language includes many varieties, it can have many speakers or just a few,
it can be of measurable economic importance or just the carrier of values
which can never be measured with money, it must be tended but it also takes
favourable external circumstances to make a garden really flourish... And
even a neglected and withered garden can be made living and green again. 

A beautiful example of successful revitalisation is Inari Sámi in Finland.
See the book by Marja-Liisa Olthuis, Suvi Kivelä and Tove Skutnabb-Kangas (
http://www.multilingual-matters.com/display.asp?K=9781847698872 ), the
accompanying website ( http://www.casle.fi/ ) and the film by Suvi Kivelä
(with English subtitles: http://youtu.be/e0YcIkUoEhc ) nicely demonstrating
the key factors to this success: activism and committed people in the
community, and the crucial role of the "language nest", the immersion
kindergarten which by now has raised dozens of new speakers .

Best

Johanna Laakso

--

Univ.Prof. Dr. Johanna Laakso

Universität Wien, Institut für Europäische und Vergleichende Sprach- und
Literaturwissenschaft (EVSL)

Abteilung Finno-Ugristik

Campus AAKH Spitalgasse 2-4 Hof 7

A-1090 Wien

johanna.laakso at univie.ac.at . http://homepage.univie.ac.at/Johanna.Laakso/

Project ELDIA: http://www.eldia-project.org/ 

Andreas Kyriacou kirjoitti 1.9.2013 kello 21.43:

I listened to a talk on endangered languages by Balthasar Bickel of
University Zürich today. He used Baruya as an example of how language loss
can result in the disappearance of cultural knowledge. He listed 23 words,
which their mother tongue provides to label different varieties of
sugarcane. As speakers switch to the local lingua franca, tok pisin, these
are all replaced by the single term 'suga'.

Maybe you could use such an example to showcase to a lay audience what
consequences language loss can have.

I too find the coffin a problematic metaphor, not mainly because of its
negative connotation as such, but because it's so overused. Every other
demonstration seems to involve carrying a coffin around.

Andreas

On 30.08.2013, at 12:54, Lena Terhart <lena.terhart at GMX.DE> wrote:

Peter,

you may be right that a coffin is not very creative nor very sensitive
towards speakers of endangered languages, especially the ones who take
effort to revitalise their languages, BUT

- the whole exhibition is about language and not language endangerment or
language diversity, it is mostly based on German word plays, rhymes etc.

- and I suppose that 99.9% of the visitors have never ever heard about
endangered languages

- therefore, we need one strong metaphor that is understandable for children
from 5 years on without too much explaining text

Language revitalisation is definitely worth mentioning and representing, but
it is only a consequence of languages dying or languages that cease to be
spoken if you prefer to put it like that.

Robert Amery proposed to exhibit a phoenix together with the coffin to
represent language revitalisation. I like that idea and will propose it to
the ones in charge of the exhibition. I am also open to other ideas, but the
final conception of the exhibition is planned for next week already.

Lena

Am 30.08.2013 um 06:56 schrieb Peter Austin:

Will there be a day when this death and dying metaphor can be put to rest? A
coffin? My goodness, can't we be a little bit more creative? And a little
bit more sensitive?

How about sharing some lessons from communities working to revitalise their
languages? There are lots of games, apps and other fun interactive things
for kids to do that are freely available on the internet now. Put a nice
package of them together and sensitise the kids to how languages are
threatened but communities are responding to strengthen their languages. You
could start by looking at www.firstvoices.com <http://www.firstvoices.com/>
and moving on from there.

That's my 2p worth.

Peter Austin

On Friday, 30 August 2013, Lena Terhart <lena.terhart at gmx.de> wrote:
> Dear Colleagues,
>
> the UNIKATUM children's museum in Leipzig, Germany, is preparing an
exhibition on language
(http://www.kindermuseum-unikatum.de/papperlapapp.html in German). I thought
it would be nice to present language endangerment as part of the exhibition
and together with the responsible people of the museum, we are now thinking
about one exhibit, probably a coffin that shall be filled with words that
may die out.
>
> In order to present a big variety of endangered languages, I would like to
ask you to contribute with
> - a list of max. 5 words in the endangered language (basic vocabulary,
something that may be interesting for children, e.g. animals, plants,
natural phenomena, or maybe also simple verbs)
> - in the orthographic convention you use
> - together with a translation
> - and some basic info about the geographic location and number and age of
speakers or alternatively a link to your website where I can find the
information
>
> Additionally, photographs of the speakers and/or environment could be very
nice, and ideally also recordings of the words (MP3), but that is not a
requisite - I know that the search for individual words and cutting process
may be too time-consuming.
>
> The mounting of the exhibition will start on the 16th of september already
so that I need the word lists until the 13th latest.
>
> Thanks!
> Lena
>

-- 
Prof Peter K. Austin
Marit Rausing Chair in Field Linguistics
Director, Endangered Languages Academic Programme

Research Tutor and PhD Convenor
Department of Linguistics, SOAS
Thornhaugh Street, Russell Square
London WC1H 0XG
United Kingdom

web: http://www.hrelp.org/aboutus/staff/index.php?cd=pa

---

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