language loss and climate change

Tue Apr 8 09:23:08 UTC 2014

I feel I should chime in on the original question, which I understood be
the link between climate change and language loss, (and not the link with
species loss).

This is something I have been thinking about for several years and have
been working in Greenland, where climate change is dramatic, with climate
change scientists (biologists, geologists, ice engineers) for the last 6
years or so.

I am convinced that the connection between language change (and loss) and
climate change is indirect. Climate change brings about cultural change,
even disruption, and that changes language vitality and also has an effect
on languages that do not shift. If a community living in a coastal region
is displaced because of climate change (such as Shishmareff, Alaska,
literally melting into the sea), then the move itself is often to a more
urban region, a less isolated region, and so on, and that often
facilitates language shift. But this is an indirect effect.

In Greenland, language vitality is not directly affected by climate
change. Changes in climate have affected the lexicon: farmers in southern
Greenland are now farming potatoes; strawberries were introduced last
year. People in the far northern regions still are able to talk about
different sea ice conditions, but as the sea ice thins, the need to will
change (or disappear) and so will their lexicons. (Greenlanders living in
regions without extensive sea ice consistently refer me to northerners
when I try to talk about ice with them.) But these are superficial
changes; people in southern Greenland know more about plants because there
are more plants there, not because of any structural properties of the
language.

That said, climate change in Greenland has brought about massive economic
development and an influx of foreigner developers, primarily looking for
oil and minerals. As their projects develop, to the best of my knowledge
all foreign companies are planning on bringing in foreign workers. Some
will leave after a couple of years and some will stay, but we are talking
about numbers of foreign workers who will significantly outnumber the
local populations in most cases. This will inevitably create new language
contact situations and, based on historical experience, it seems safe to
predict that relatively few of these workers (or their bosses) will learn
much if any Greenlandic.

To look at the situation differently, in the pan-Arctic region there is
extensive climate change everywhere. Language vitality does not appear to
be correlated with it but with other social factors: Inupiaq is highly
endangered in Alaska but Kalaallisut (West Greenlandic) is robustly spoken
in Greenland. But climate change does affect those social factors and
could well accelerate shift, but again, indirectly.

If anyone knows of evidence against this, that there is a direct
correlation, I would be very interested.
Lenore

On 4/8/14 3:58 AM, "Paolo Ramat" <paoram at UNIPV.IT> wrote:

>Susanne Romaine has dealt with the problem of languages and species
>reduction on many occasions.
>See: S. R., Language ecology and language death, in E.Miola & P.Ramat
>(eds.), "Language  Contact and Language Decay. Socio-political and
>linguistic perspectives", IUSS Press, Pavia 2011: 213-225.
>S.R., Language and ecology, in P.Binder & K.Smith (eds.), "The language
>phenomenon", New York, Springer Berlag 2010.
>
>
>However, I wonder whether Nigel's question has to do with the extinction
>crises for biodiversity and linguistic diversity.
>Best
>Paolo
>---------------------------
>Prof.Paolo Ramat
>Università di Pavia
>Istituto Universitario di Studi Superiori (IUSS Pavia)
>
>
>-----Messaggio originale-----
>From: Caroline Imbert
>Sent: Tuesday, April 08, 2014 10:15 AM
>To: LINGTYP at LISTSERV.LINGUISTLIST.ORG
>Subject: Re: language loss and climate change
>
>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.vi
>>ncent
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> Jorge Emilio Rosés Labrada
>> PhD candidate & Vanier Canada Graduate Scholar
>> Department of French Studies (Linguistics)
>> University of Western Ontario 