Accompanying CD-ROM contains songs rendered by the tribes plus sound and video files.

A Grammar of the Great Andamanese Language is a pioneering piece of work by Anvita Abbi which introduces readers to a unique world of cognition of the people who are remnants of the first migration from Africa 70,000 years before present.

A concise, accessible introduction to language endangerment and why it is one of the most urgent challenges of our times. 58% of the world’s languages—or, approximately 4,000 languages—are endangered. When we break this figure down, we realize that roughly ten percent of languages have fewer than ten language keepers. And, if one language stops being used every three months, this means that in the next 100 years, if we do nothing, 400 more languages will become dormant. In Endangered Languages, Evangelia Adamou, a specialist of endangered languages and a learner of her own community language, Nashta, offers a sobering look at language endangerment and what is truly lost when a language disappears from usage. Combining recent advances from the Western scientific tradition—from the fields of linguistics, psycholinguistics, neurolinguistics, language attrition, population genetics, and natural language processing—and insights from Indigenous epistemology, theory, and ethics, Adamou examines a wealth of issues surrounding endangered languages. She discusses where endangered languages are found, including how they are faring in a digital world, why these languages are no longer used, and how communities can reclaim languages and keep them strong. Adamou also explains the impact of language continuity on community and individual health and well-being, the importance of language transmission in cultural transmission, and why language rights are essentially human rights. Drawing on varied examples from the Wampanoag Nation to Wales, Endangered Languages offers a powerful reminder of the crucial role every language has in the vitality and well-being of individuals, communities, and our world.

The concern for the fast-disappearing language stocks of the world has arisen particularly in the past decade, as a result of the impact of globalization. This book appears as an answer to a felt need: to catalogue and describe those languages, making up the vast majority of the world's six thousand or more distinct tongues, which are in danger of disappearing within the next few decades. Endangerment is a complex issue, and the reasons why so many of the world's smaller, less empowered languages are not being passed on to future generations today are discussed in the book's introduction. The introduction is followed by regional sections, each authored by a notable specialist, combining to provide a comprehensive listing of every language which, by the criteria of endangerment set out in the introduction, is likely to disappear within the next few decades. These languages make up ninety per cent of the world's remaining language stocks. Each regional section comprises an introduction that deals with problems of language preservation peculiar to the area, surveys of known extinct languages, and problems of classification. The introduction is followed by a list of all known languages within the region, endangered or not, arranged by genetic affiliation, with endangered and extinct languages marked. This listing is followed by entries in alphabetical order covering each language listed as endangered. Useful maps are provided to pinpoint the more complex clusters of smaller languages in every region of the world. The Encyclopedia therefore provides in a single resource: expert analysis of the current language policy situation in every multilingual country and on every continent, detailed descriptions of little-known languages from all over the world, and clear alphabetical entries, region by region, of all the world's languages currently thought to be in danger of extinction. The Encyclopedia of the World’s Endangered Languages will be a necessary addition to all academic linguistics collections and will be a useful resource for a range of readers with an interest in development studies, cultural heritage and international affairs.

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.

A definitive guide to an almost extinct North Andamanese language. Originally spoken across the northern Andamanese Islands in the Bay of Bengal, the Akajeru language is spoken today by only three people. A Grammar of Akajeru describes this unique grammatical system as it was reported at the turn of the twentieth century. Based primarily on research conducted by Victorian anthropologists Alfred R. Radcliffe-Brown and Edward Horace Man, this book offers a linguistic analysis of all extant Akajeru material as well as the scant documentation of adjacent dialects Akabo and Akakhora. This volume includes a grammatical sketch of Akajeru, an English-Akajeru lexicon, and a comparison between Akajeru and present-day Andamanese.

This book explores the challenges to linguistic vitality confronting many minority languages in the highly diverse and geographically far-flung Austronesian language family. The contributions bring together Indigenous language activists and academic researchers with a long-standing commitment to language documentation.