the argument for language maintenance

[Aidan Wilson]

I remember being in an undergraduate class and going to a local Aborigial 
Language centre, in Glebe I think, where this bloke gave a short talk 
about how important language was to him.

He'd grown up without any knowledge of his language (may have been Dharug, 
I suppose, but I can't remember) and was pretty messed up because of it - 
drugs and alcohol, abuse of others, etc. He said that when he was able to 
find out something about his own culture and language, he more or less 
found a bit of his identity that had been lacking before and - you know 
the story - quit grog and drugs and became a better husband.

Anecdata I know, but I think it's true that one's language, especially if 
it's a minority/indigenous language specific to a small ethnic group as is 
the case in most of Aboriginal Australia, is incredibly important in 
people's lives. We Anglophones tend not to realise this because there's 
absolutely no chance in our lifetimes that we'll find ourselves in the 
minority.

-

I have a mate who's an ecologist and works with endangered amphibian 
species. A very intelligent and friendly guy. One night though, he started 
asking me why I bother with language maintenance on Wagiman, a language 
with around 4-7 speakers (depending on where you draw the line on 
fluency). Why wouldn't we, as linguists, put all our efforts into 'saving' 
one of the languages that is most likely to survive. I thought this was 
extremely odd coming from someone who works with endangered frogs.

(Tangent: there's a nice analogy with native frog species and the virulent 
spread of Cane Toads - reported in both Sydney and Kununurra last week)

To get back to the main point, I haven't yet had anyone seriously claim 
that there were too many aboriginal languages, just that we shouldn't be 
doing quite so much to maintain the most critically endangered but instead 
support the stronger languages, the most likely to survive. As a 
syntactician, I'd probably counter that Australia represents a massively 
diverse linguistic area and each language has the potential to increase 
our understanding of how language works. Letting languages die without 
doing anything about it is like shredding evidence.

-- 
Aidan Wilson

The University of Sydney
+612 9036 9558
+61428 458 969
aidan.wilson at usyd.edu.au

On Fri, 26 Mar 2010, Dr Christina Eira - VACL wrote:

> One position would be that the argument is only taking into account the
> single, relatively recent nation 'Australia' and forgetting that the
> older continent has/had many nations (and cultures and languages). It's
> kinda like saying there should only be one language for Africa.
>
> Dr Christina Eira
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Margaret Carew [mailto:margaret.carew at batchelor.edu.au]
> Sent: Thursday, 25 March 2010 10:40 PM
> To: r-n-l-d at unimelb.edu.au
> Subject: FW: the argument for language maintenance
>
>
> Hi there
>
> I got this question - see below - from a (non-linguist) colleague. I
> thought it would be interesting to conduct a quick survey amongst RNLD
> members, so please read on...
>
> Folks,
>
> When you have a quiet reflective moment...
>
> re: the argument for language maintenance
>
> What are the standard replies given to people who complain that there
> are too many Aboriginal languages for language maintenance, that
> supporting all those languages will cost too much, etc.
>
> And New Zealand is given as an example where language maint is
> practical, because only 1 language.
>
> I'm thinking there must be some standard ideas on this question in
> linguistic circles.
>
>
>
>
>
>