"tip"

[Emily McEwan-Fujita]

Sorry, it was me, not Hal, with whom you agreed! :)
(Hal graciously posted the message on my behalf since
I'd accidentally subscribed to the list with the wrong
email address.) And I agree with your comment as well.

Regards,

Emily McEwan-Fujita
ecmcewan at alumni.uchicago.edu
emilymcfujita at yahoo.com

--- Aurolyn Luykx <aurolynluykx at yahoo.com> wrote:

> I agree with Hal -- while rough notions of the
> number
> and/or percentage of speakers required to ensure lg.
> vitality (to the degree that it is ever "ensured"!)
> are useful for lay people, they cannot be thought of
> even as general rules of thumb by linguists
> researching such matters. A whole confluence of
> different factors (# of speakers, % of bilinguals,
> average age of speakers, geographical concentration,
> ethno-political pluralism, dialectal fragmentation,
> language ideologies ,etc. etc. etc.) must be
> considered in gauging a language's vitality, and to
> reduce it to a question of how many speakers, even
> for
> "simplicity's sake", is highly misleading.
> Aurolyn Luykx
> p.s. There was indeed a panel on "tip" at the AAA
> last
> year, though I think it must have been in San
> Francisco, because I went to Atlanta and didn't see
> it. If you can get hold of the conference program or
> the book of abstracts, those would list who the
> presenters were.
> 
> --- Multiple recipients of list
> <lgpolicy-list at ccat.sas.upenn.edu> wrote:
> 
> > 
> > 			    LGPOLICY-LIST Digest 50
> > 
> > Topics covered in this issue include:
> > 
> >   1) Re: Research about the threshold of a
> > linguistic 'slippery slope'?
> > 	by "Harold F. Schiffman"
> > <haroldfs at ccat.sas.upenn.edu>
> >   2) Revitalizing Igbo
> > 	by "Harold F. Schiffman"
> > <haroldfs at ccat.sas.upenn.edu>
> >   3) House bill 2089 (Pennsylvania) to officialize
> > English
> > 	by "Harold F. Schiffman"
> > <haroldfs at ccat.sas.upenn.edu>
> > > Date: Tue, 29 Nov 2005 08:38:00 -0500 (EST)
> > From: "Harold F. Schiffman"
> > <haroldfs at ccat.sas.upenn.edu>
> > To: Language Policy-List
> > <lgpolicy-list at ccat.sas.upenn.edu>
> > Subject: Re: Research about the threshold of a
> > linguistic 'slippery slope'?
> > 
> > 
> > Dear Nicholas,
> > 
> > The threshold of the slippery slope you refer to
> is
> > called linguistic
> > "tip" in the literature; the phrase was coined by
> > Nancy Dorian in her 1981
> > book _Language Death: The Life Cycle of a Scottish
> > Gaelic Dialect_: "In
> > terms of possible routes toward language death it
> > would seem that a
> > language which has been demographically highly
> > stable for several
> > centuries may experience a sudden 'tip' after
> which
> > the demographic tide
> > flows strongly in favor of some other language."
> (p.
> > 51)
> > 
> > Sorry to say, I have not seen in the linguistic
> > anthropological literature
> > any research or speculation about what the tipping
> > point might be for a
> > given language in terms of an actual percentage of
> > speakers. The articles
> > I have seen focus more on what kinds of
> > socioeconomic factors and
> > linguistic ideologies have precipitated the tip.
> > (For example, Elizabeth
> > Mertz's article on Cape Breton Gaelic in the
> edited
> > volume _Investigating
> > Obsolescence_).
> > 
> > I believe there was a panel revisiting the concept
> > of linguistic tip at
> > last year's truncated AAAs (American
> Anthropological
> > Association Annual
> > Meetings) in Atlanta (or was it in San
> Francisco!).
> > Are any of that
> > panel's participants on this list?
> > 
> > There _is_ a slightly different kind of claim
> > floating around that is
> > based not on percentages, but on actual numbers of
> > speakers. This claim,
> > frequently repeated by linguists and the media, is
> > that a language needs
> > 100,000 speakers to survive. This claim originated
> > as a series of cautious
> > speculations on the part of the linguist Michael
> > Krauss, and is not a
> > scientific theory. I trace the origin and
> > transformation of this claim,
> > and its application to Scottish Gaelic by British
> > journalists, in my
> > article titled "'Gaelic Doomed as Speakers Die
> Out'?
> > The Public Discouse
> > of Gaelic Language Death in Scotland." It is
> > forthcoming next year in
> > _Leasachadh na Gaidhlig: Revitalising Gaelic in
> > Contemporary Scotland_,
> > Wilson McLeod, ed., Dunedin Academic Press
> > (Edinburgh). I'd be happy to
> > send you a copy via e-mail.
> > 
> > Based on my analysis of this "100,000 speakers"
> > claim, I would tend to
> > take with a grain of salt any claims of an actual
> > percentage of speakers
> > within a community needed to maintain a language
> as
> > a means of everyday
> > use. Not least because journalists' favorite way
> to
> > use the 100,000
> > speakers claim in Scotland is as "scientific
> proof"
> > of the supposedly
> > imminent (or even completed) death of Scottish
> > Gaelic, and as an argument
> > against public funding for Gaelic revitalization
> > efforts.
> > 
> > Regards,
> > 
> > Emily McEwan-Fujita
> > ecmcewan at alumni.uchicago.edu
> > 
> > 
> > > --- Nicholas Ostler
> <nostler at chibcha.demon.co.uk>
> > > wrote:
> > >
> > > > Dear All
> > > >
> > > > This is a question, rather than a bit of
> > > transmitted
> > > > news.
> > > >
> > > > It is sometimes claimed that there is a
> critical
> > > > proportion of speakers
> > > > of a given language in a multilingual
> community
> > > that
> > > > must be maintained,
> > > > if that language is to continue in everyday
> use.
> > > > Such a claim makes
> > > > sense in a context where there is a background
> > > > metropolitan language
> > > > (typically English, but it could as easily be
> > > > Portuguese, Russian,
> > > > Spanish or Chinese) that is under no threat,
> and
> > > > spoken by numbers
> > > > approaching 100% . The other, less widely
> > spoken,
> > > > language can only
> > > > survive in stable bilingualism with this
> > > background
> > > > language if there is
> > > > a fair presumption, within a given community,
> > that
> > > > enough listeners are
> > > > there to understand it.
> > > >
> > > > The idea, then, is that there is a kind of
> > tipping
> > > > point, or a threshold
> > > > of the slippery slope, perhaps as high as 70%;
> > if
> > > > the lesser-speaking
> > > > community dips below this proportion, it will
> > tend
> > > > to diminish further,
> > > > until (without active policy measures) it
> might
> > > die
> > > > out altogether. But
> > > > above this proportion, its numbers can vary up
> > and
> > > > down with no
> > > > long-term effect or trend visible.
> 
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