Africa's Endangered Languages
Title | Africa's Endangered Languages PDF eBook |
Author | Jason Kandybowicz |
Publisher | Oxford University Press |
Pages | 521 |
Release | 2017-07-10 |
Genre | Language Arts & Disciplines |
ISBN | 0190675284 |
Relatively little is known about Africa's endangered languages. Unlike indigenous languages in Australia, North Asia, and the Americas, which are predominantly threatened by colonizers, African languages are threatened most immediately by other local languages. As a result, the threat of language extinction is perceived as lower in Africa than in other parts of the globe, and a disproportionate amount of research is devoted to the study of endangered African languages when compared to any other linguistically threatened region in the world. There are approximately 308 highly endangered languages spoken in Africa (roughly 12% of all African languages) and at least 201 extinct African languages. This volume hopes to illuminate and challenge this trend. Chapters offer both documentary and theoretical perspectives, emphasizing the symbiotic relationship between the two approaches and its implications for the preservation of endangered languages, both in the African context and more broadly. Documentary-oriented chapters deal with key issues in African language documentation including language preservation and revitalization, community activism, and data collection and dissemination methodologies, among others. Theoretically-oriented chapters provide detailed descriptions and analyses of phonetic, phonological, morphological, syntactic, and semantic phenomena, and connect these to current theoretical issues and debates. Africa's Endangered Languages provides thorough coverage of a continent's neglected languages that will spur linguists and Africanists alike to work to protect them.
Language Documentation and Endangerment in Africa
Title | Language Documentation and Endangerment in Africa PDF eBook |
Author | James Essegbey |
Publisher | John Benjamins Publishing Company |
Pages | 324 |
Release | 2015-10-15 |
Genre | Language Arts & Disciplines |
ISBN | 9027268150 |
This volume brings together a number of important perspectives on language documentation and endangerment in Africa from an international cohort of scholars with vast experience in the field. Offering insights from rural and urban settings throughout the continent, these essays consider topics that range from the development of a writing system to ideologies of language endangerment, from working with displaced communities to the role of colonial languages in reshaping African repertoires, and from the insights of archeology to the challenges of language documentation as a doctoral project. The authors are concerned with both theoretical and practical aspects of language documentation as they address the ways in which the African context both differs from and resembles contexts of endangerment elsewhere in the world. This volume will be useful to fieldworkers and documentalists who work in Africa and beyond.
Endangered Languages in Africa
Title | Endangered Languages in Africa PDF eBook |
Author | Matthias Brenzinger |
Publisher | R. Koppe |
Pages | 300 |
Release | 1998 |
Genre | Foreign Language Study |
ISBN |
Language Decline and Death in Africa
Title | Language Decline and Death in Africa PDF eBook |
Author | Herman Batibo |
Publisher | Multilingual Matters |
Pages | 196 |
Release | 2005-01-01 |
Genre | Language Arts & Disciplines |
ISBN | 9781853598081 |
The aim of this book is to inform both scholars and the public about the nature and extent of the problem of language decline and death in Africa. It resourcefully traces the main causes and circumstances of language endangerment, the processes and extent of language shift and death, and the consequences of language loss to the continent's rich linguistic and cultural heritage. The book outlines some of the challenges that have emerged out of the situation.
Language Diversity Endangered
Title | Language Diversity Endangered PDF eBook |
Author | Matthias Brenzinger |
Publisher | Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG |
Pages | 472 |
Release | 2015-07-31 |
Genre | Language Arts & Disciplines |
ISBN | 3110905698 |
This book presents a comprehensive overview of endangered languages with a global coverage. It features such well-known specialists as Michael Krauss, Willem F. H. Adelaar, Denny Moore, Colette Grinevald, Akira Yamamoto, Roger Blench, Bruce Connell, Tapani Salminen, Olga Kazakevich, Aleksandr Kibrik, Jonathan Owens, David Bradley, George van Driem, Nicholas Evans, Stephen A. Wurm, Darrell Tryon and Matthias Brenzinger. The contributions are unique in analysing the present extent and the various kinds of language endangerment by applying shared general indicators for the assessment of language endangerment. Apart from presenting the specific situations of language endangerment at the sub-continental level, the volume discusses major issues that bear universally on language endangerment. The actual study of endangered languages is carefully examined, for example, against the ethics and pragmatics of fieldwork. Practical aspects of community involvement in language documentation are discussed, such as the setting up of local archives and the training of local linguists. Numerous case studies illustrate different language shift environments with specific replacing factors, such as colonial and religious conquests, migrations and governmental language education. The book is of interest to students and scholars of linguistics with particular focus on endangered languages (and their documentation), typology, and sociolinguistics as well as to anthropologists and language activists.
Africa's Endangered Languages
Title | Africa's Endangered Languages PDF eBook |
Author | Jason Kandybowicz |
Publisher | Oxford University Press |
Pages | 521 |
Release | 2017-07-10 |
Genre | Language Arts & Disciplines |
ISBN | 0190256354 |
Relatively little is known about Africa's endangered languages. Unlike indigenous languages in Australia, North Asia, and the Americas, which are predominantly threatened by colonizers, African languages are threatened most immediately by other local languages. As a result, the threat of language extinction is perceived as lower in Africa than in other parts of the globe, and a disproportionate amount of research is devoted to the study of endangered African languages when compared to any other linguistically threatened region in the world. There are approximately 308 highly endangered languages spoken in Africa (roughly 12% of all African languages) and at least 201 extinct African languages. This volume hopes to illuminate and challenge this trend. Chapters offer both documentary and theoretical perspectives, emphasizing the symbiotic relationship between the two approaches and its implications for the preservation of endangered languages, both in the African context and more broadly. Documentary-oriented chapters deal with key issues in African language documentation including language preservation and revitalization, community activism, and data collection and dissemination methodologies, among others. Theoretically-oriented chapters provide detailed descriptions and analyses of phonetic, phonological, morphological, syntactic, and semantic phenomena, and connect these to current theoretical issues and debates. Africa's Endangered Languages provides thorough coverage of a continent's neglected languages that will spur linguists and Africanists alike to work to protect them.
One Thousand Languages
Title | One Thousand Languages PDF eBook |
Author | Peter Austin |
Publisher | Univ of California Press |
Pages | 298 |
Release | 2008 |
Genre | Language and languages |
ISBN | 9780520255609 |
Presents an overview of the living, endangered, and extinct languages of the world, providing the total number of speakers of the language, its history, and maps of the geographic areas where it is presently spoken or where it was spoken in the past.