language loss and climate change

Tue Apr 8 08:15:53 UTC 2014

Dear all --

I do not know if this is precisely the kind of literature you are
looking for, Nigel, but two articles come to mind right now:

- One that I have read : "Parallel extinction risk and global
distribution of languages and species", by William J. Sutherland, in
the "Letters to Nature" section of Nature, Vol. 423, 15 May 2003.

- One that I have not read and therefore am unable to comment further
: "Co-occurrence of linguistic and biological diversity in
biodiversity hotspots and high biodiversity wilderness areas", by L.
J. Gorenflo, S. Romaine, R. A. Mittermeier and K. Walker-Painemilla,
in The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), 7 May
2012.

The article by Sutherland comes from Life and Ecology Sciences and
proposes interesting quantification criteria along a number of common
factors of extinction.

I am convinced that Biology and Linguistics have a lot to discuss, and
I was glad to hear quite a number of people recently comparing
dynamics and mechanisms of species extinction and language extinction,
or indeed including languages as a kind of species along plants, fish,
mammals, for the sake of argument.

Best,
Caroline
_______________________________________

Caroline IMBERT
Asst. Professor of Linguistics
University of Grenoble
WebCV: www.carolineimbert.com
Email : imbert.caroline at gmail.com

2014-04-08 4:57 GMT+02:00 Bill Palmer <bill.palmer at newcastle.edu.au>:
> Dear Nigel
>
>
>
> I am not aware of any specific literature on this topic but I wanted to
> follow up Jorge's email. Halia is spoken by a large community on mainland
> Buka (essentially part of Bougainville). However, a small community speaking
> a distinct dialect of Halia occupied an atoll called Tulun (with various
> bother names in some of the literature). The PNG government decided to
> relocate the inhabitants to mainland Buka due to the islands of the atoll
> becoming problematic for habitation, a major issue being storm surges. The
> community were resettled among the considerably more numerous speakers of
> other Halia dialects on Buka. This could be predicted with a considerable
> degree of confidence to result in loss of the Tulun dialect, as the children
> of relocated Tulun speakers are likely to acquire the dominate Hanahan
> dialect. However, a few Tulun speakers have since decided to return to Tulun
> to live, at least part time. Nonetheless, the small numbers and the
> increasingly untenable nature of the atoll for habitation means the Tulun
> dialect will probably disappear within a generation. I have had a PhD
> student do some work with Tulun speakers, and the above information is based
> on his findings.
>
>
>
> I am particularly interested in atoll-based languages for a number of
> reasons, and currently have a major project on spatial language in
> atoll-based communities, with PhD students working the Marshall Islands and
> the Maldives. The urgency of the project (and part of the selling pitch to
> the funding body) is the prediction of loss of the habitats of these
> languages, although neither Marshallese nor Dhivehi are in the same
> immediate danger as Tulun.
>
>
>
>
>
> Best
>
> Bill
>
>
>
> From: Discussion List for ALT [mailto:LINGTYP at LISTSERV.LINGUISTLIST.ORG] On
> Behalf Of Jorge Emilio Rosés Labrada
> Sent: Monday, 7 April 2014 10:02 PM
> To: LINGTYP at LISTSERV.LINGUISTLIST.ORG
> Subject: Re: language loss and climate change
>
>
>
> Dear Nigel,
>
> I am not familiar with any such literature (but I will admit that language
> endangerment is not my primary area of research so there might be someone
> here who knows about something) but I think that the reason for the lack of
> such literature (at least in a more visible way if there is any) is that we
> are just starting to see the effects of climate change on humans (well,
> beyond floods and droughts...). This article came to my attention yesterday
> "First Official Climate Change Refugees Evacuate Their Island Homes for
> Good" ( @
> http://www.treehugger.com/corporate-responsibility/first-official-climate-change-refugees-evacuate-their-island-homes-for-good.htm)
> and two of the things I thought about were what language(s) they spoke and
> what would become of their language now that they are being removed from
> their environment.
>
> A little (very little, just Wikipedia-little) research told me that they are
> Halia speakers and Ethnologue says that the language has about 20,000
> speakers (http://www.ethnologue.com/language/HLA/***EDITION***) so, although
> it is unlikely that the language as whole will become endangered as a result
> of this climate-change induced relocation, their dialect might be.
>
> Best,
>
> Jorge
>
>
>
> On Mon, Apr 7, 2014 at 7:06 AM, Nigel Vincent
> <nigel.vincent at manchester.ac.uk> wrote:
>
> There is a considerable literature on species loss attributable to climate
> change. Can anyone point me to articles that discuss language loss or
> endangerment that has come about through the effects of climate change?
> Thanks in advance.
> Nigel
>
>
>
> Professor Nigel Vincent, FBA MAE
> Professor Emeritus of General & Romance Linguistics
> The University of Manchester
>
>
>
> Vice-President for Research & HE Policy, The British Academy
>
>
>
> Linguistics & English Language
> School of Arts, Languages and Cultures
>
> The University of Manchester
>
> Manchester M13 9PL
>
> UK
>
>
>
>
>
> http://staffprofiles.humanities.manchester.ac.uk/Profile.aspx?Id=nigel.vincent
>
>
>
>
> --
> Jorge Emilio Rosés Labrada
> PhD candidate & Vanier Canada Graduate Scholar
> Department of French Studies (Linguistics)
> University of Western Ontario