Call for Registration: FEL X Mysore - VITAL VOICES: Endangered Lan...

[Ann Rowe]

Hello, everyone.

May I ask something?  If anyone on the listserv is planning to attend, might 
they be willing to report on the conference for the rest of us?

These are among the most important issues for language survival and 
revitalization.  It is a far simpler matter to preserve and language and teach it to 
people than it is to conserve the language within its own culture.  What I see 
happening is that, while we recognize the loss of languages as a real threat, 
we are not coming up with good ideas about how to conserve the language in 
situ, within the culture.  

Part of the problem is, of course, that for many languages, their cultures 
have already been absorbed, or as some call it "colonized."  How then is the 
conservation to be done?  Who is going to be included in the culture - all of the 
speakers of the culture's language or only those speakers who have a blood 
relationship to the culture?  Will cultures lose certain advantages or perhaps 
disadvantages depending upon point of view (political, economic, whatever) 
depending upon which "community" of speakers they choose?  

My sense is that we are being pushed toward less diversity and more 
globalized, homogenous culture.  We need to figure out if that is what we want before 
it is all we have....

Thank you, Ann
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