Book Notice

[Harold F. Schiffman]

>>From Linguist List:

Language Death and Language Maintenance: Janse & Tol (eds)
Theoretical, practical and descriptive approaches

Current Issues in Linguistic Theory 240 2003 Publisher: John Benjamins
http://www.benjamins.com/, http://www.benjamins.nl


Editor: Mark Janse, Linguistic Bibliography, Ghent University,
        University of Amsterdam
Editor: Sijmen  Tol, Linguistic Bibliography


Abstract:

Languages are dying at an alarming rate all over the world. Estimates
range from 50% to as much as 90% by the end of the century. This
collection of original papers tries to strike a balance between
theoretical, practical and descriptive approaches to language death and
language maintenance. It provides overviews of language endangerment in
Africa, Eurasia, and the Greater Pacific Area. It also presents case
studies of endangered languages from various language families. These
descriptive case studies not only provide data on the degree of
endangerment and the causes of language death, but also provide a general
sociolinguistic and typological characterization the language(s) under
discussion and the prospects of language maintenance (if any). The volume
will be of interest to all those concerned with the ongoing extinction of
the worlds linguistic diversity.

Contributions: Mark Janse: Introduction: Language death and language
maintenance: problems and prospects; Paul Newman: The endangered languages
issue as a hopeless cause; Stephen A. Wurm: The language situation and
language endangerment in the Greater Pacific area; Aone van Engelhoven:
Language endangerment in Indonesia: Teun, Nila and Serua; Giovanni Stary:
Sibe: an endangered language; Stefan Georg: The gradual disappearance of a
Eurasian language family: the case of Yeniseyan; Rogier Blokland &
Cornelius Hasselblatt: The endangered Uralic languages; Astrid Menz:
Endangered Turkic languages: the case of Gagauz; Maarten Mous: Loss of
linguistic diversity in Africa; Graziano Sava: Ongota (Birale), a moribund
language of Southwest Ethiopia; Andrew Haruna: The Gurdu language of the
Southern Bauchi area, Nigeria; Han Steenwijk: Resian as a minority
language.

Hardback: ISBN: 1588113825, Pages: xviii, 244 pp., Price: USD 95.00
Hardback: ISBN: 9027247528, Pages: xviii, 244 pp., Price: EUR 95.00