33.1650, Books: The Last Language on Earth: Kelly

[The LINGUIST List]

LINGUIST List: Vol-33-1650. Tue May 10 2022. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 33.1650, Books: The Last Language on Earth: Kelly

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Date: Tue, 10 May 2022 18:09:09
From: Tyler Simnick [Tyler.Simnick at oup.com]
Subject: The Last Language on Earth: Kelly

 


Title: The Last Language on Earth 
Subtitle: Linguistic Utopianism in the Philippines 
Series Title: Oxford Studies in the Anthropology of Language  

Publication Year: 2021 
Publisher: Oxford University Press
	   http://www.oup.com/us
	

Book URL: https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-last-language-on-earth-9780197509913?utm_source=linguistlist&utm_medium=listserv&utm_campaign=linguistics 


Author: Piers Kelly

Hardback: ISBN:  9780197509913 Pages: 328 Price: U.S. $ 99
Paperback: ISBN:  9780197509920 Pages: 328 Price: U.S. $ 39.95


Abstract:

The Last Language on Earth is an ethnographic history of the disputed Eskayan
language, spoken today by an isolated upland community living on the island of
Bohol in the southern Philippines. After Eskaya people were first 'discovered'
in 1980, visitors described the group as a lost tribe preserving a unique
language and writing system. Others argued that the Eskaya were merely members
of a utopian rural cult who had invented their own language and script. Rather
than adjudicating outsider polemics, this book engages directly with the
language itself as well as the direct perspectives of those who use it today.

Through written and oral accounts, Eskaya people have represented their
language as an ancestral creation derived from a human body. Reinforcing this
traditional view, Piers Kelly's linguistic analysis shows how a complex new
register was brought into being by fusing new vocabulary onto a modified local
grammar. In a synthesis of linguistic, ethnographic, and historical evidence,
a picture emerges of a coastal community that fled the ravages of the U.S.
invasion of the island in 1901 in order to build a utopian society in the
hills. Here they predicted that the world's languages would decline leaving
Eskayan as the last language on earth. Marshalling anthropological theories of
nationalism, authenticity, and language ideology, along with comparisons to
similar events across highland Southeast Asia, Kelly offers a convincing
account of this linguistic mystery and also shows its broader relevance to
linguistic anthropology. Although the Eskayan situation is unusual, it has the
power to illuminate the pivotal role that language plays in the pursuit of
identity-building and political resistance.
 



Linguistic Field(s): Anthropological Linguistics
                     Language Documentation


Written In: English  (eng)

See this book announcement on our website: 
http://linguistlist.org/pubs/books/get-book.cfm?BookID=158333




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