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Language Endangerment
An endangered language or moribund language is a language that is at risk of disappearing as its speakers die out or shift to speaking other languages. Language loss occurs when the language has no more native speakers and becomes a "dead language". If no one can speak the language at all, it becomes an "extinct language". A dead language may still be studied through recordings or writings, but it is still dead or extinct unless there are fluent speakers. Although languages have always become extinct throughout human history, they are currently dying at an accelerated rate because of globalization, imperialism, neocolonialism and linguicide (language killing). Language shift most commonly occurs when speakers switch to a language associated with social or economic power or spoken more widely, the ultimate result being language death. The general consensus is that there are between 6,000 and 7,000 languages currently spoken. Some linguists estimate that between 50% and 90% of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
India
India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the south, the Arabian Sea on the southwest, and the Bay of Bengal on the southeast, it shares land borders with Pakistan to the west; China, Nepal, and Bhutan to the north; and Bangladesh and Myanmar to the east. In the Indian Ocean, India is in the vicinity of Sri Lanka and the Maldives; its Andaman and Nicobar Islands share a maritime border with Thailand, Myanmar, and Indonesia. Modern humans arrived on the Indian subcontinent from Africa no later than 55,000 years ago., "Y-Chromosome and Mt-DNA data support the colonization of South Asia by modern humans originating in Africa. ... Coalescence dates for most non-European populations average to between 73–55 ka.", "Modern human beings—''Homo sapiens''—originated in Africa. Then, int ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Globalization
Globalization, or globalisation (Commonwealth English; see spelling differences), is the process of interaction and integration among people, companies, and governments worldwide. The term ''globalization'' first appeared in the early 20th century (supplanting an earlier French term ''mondialization''), developed its current meaning some time in the second half of the 20th century, and came into popular use in the 1990s to describe the unprecedented international connectivity of the post-Cold War world. Its origins can be traced back to 18th and 19th centuries due to advances in transportation and communications technology. This increase in global interactions has caused a growth in international trade and the exchange of ideas, beliefs, and culture. Globalization is primarily an economic process of interaction and integration that is associated with social and cultural aspects. However, disputes and international diplomacy are also large parts of the history of globalizat ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
SIL International
SIL International (formerly known as the Summer Institute of Linguistics) is an evangelical Christian non-profit organization whose main purpose is to study, develop and document languages, especially those that are lesser-known, in order to expand linguistic knowledge, promote literacy, translate the Christian Bible into local languages, and aid minority language development. Based on its language documentation work, SIL publishes a database, ''Ethnologue'', of its research into the world's languages, and develops and publishes software programs for language documentation, such as FieldWorks Language Explorer (FLEx) and Lexique Pro. Its main offices in the United States are located at the International Linguistics Center in Dallas, Texas. History William Cameron Townsend, a Presbyterian minister, founded the organization in 1934, after undertaking a Christian mission with the Disciples of Christ among the Kaqchikel Maya people in Guatemala in the early 1930s.George Thomas ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Systematic Survey
Systematic survey or extensive survey is the archaeological technique of detailed examination of an area for the purpose of recording the location and significance of archaeological resources. It provides a regional perspective by gathering information on settlement patterns over a large area. It is one of the basic fieldwork strategies used by paleoanthropologists and archaeologists. The regional survey answer questions pertaining to the site's location, the size of the settlement, their types of buildings, and the age of the site. Usually the surveyor walks over the area and records the site locations and their size. During this process, the surveyor tries to date the site to see when it was occupied.. See also *Archaeological field survey In archaeology, survey or field survey is a type of field research by which archaeologists (often landscape archaeologists) search for archaeological sites and collect information about the location, distribution and organization of past ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Language Documentation
Language documentation (also: documentary linguistics) is a subfield of linguistics which aims to describe the grammar and use of human languages. It aims to provide a comprehensive record of the linguistic practices characteristic of a given speech community. Language documentation seeks to create as thorough a record as possible of the speech community for both posterity and language revitalization. This record can be public or private depending on the needs of the community and the purpose of the documentation. In practice, language documentation can range from solo linguistic anthropological fieldwork to the creation of vast online archives that contain dozens of different languages, such as FirstVoices or OLAC. Language documentation provides a firmer foundation for linguistic analysis in that it creates a corpus of materials in the language. The materials in question can range from vocabulary lists and grammar rules to children's books and translated works. These materials can ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Speech Community
A speech community is a group of people who share a set of linguistic norms and expectations regarding the usage (language), use of language. It is a concept mostly associated with sociolinguistics and anthropological linguistics. Exactly how to define ''speech community'' is debated in the literature. Definitions of speech community tend to involve varying degrees of emphasis on the following: * Shared community membership * Shared linguistic communication A typical speech community can be a small town, but sociolinguists such as William Labov claim that a large metropolitan area, for example New York City, can also be considered one single speech community. Early definitions have tended to see speech communities as bounded and localized groups of people who live together and come to share the same linguistic norms because they belong to the same local community. It has also been assumed that within a community a homogeneous set of Norm (social), norms should exist. These assump ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Language Policy
Language policy is an interdisciplinary academic field. Some scholars such as Joshua Fishman and Ofelia García consider it as part of sociolinguistics. On the other hand, other scholars such as Bernard SpolskyRobert B. Kaplanand Joseph Lo Bianco argue that language policy is a branch of applied linguistics. As a field, language policy used to be known as language planning and is related to other fields such as language ideology, language revitalization, language education, among others. Definitions Language policy has been defined in a number of ways. According to Kaplan and Baldauf (1997), "A language policy is a body of ideas, laws, regulations, rules and practices intended to achieve the planned language change in the societies, group or system" (p. xi). Lo Bianco defines the field as “a situated activity, whose specific history and local circumstances influence what is regarded as a language problem, and whose political dynamics determine which language problems are g ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Language Revitalization
Language revitalization, also referred to as language revival or reversing language shift, is an attempt to halt or reverse the decline of a language or to revive an extinct one. Those involved can include linguists, cultural or community groups, or governments. Some argue for a distinction between language revival (the resurrection of an extinct language with no existing native speakers) and language revitalization (the rescue of a "dying" language). There has only been one successful instance of a complete language revival, the Hebrew language, creating a new generation of native speakers without any pre-existing native speakers as a model. Languages targeted for language revitalization include those whose use and prominence is severely limited. Sometimes various tactics of language revitalization can even be used to try to revive extinct languages. Though the goals of language revitalization vary greatly from case to case, they typically involve attempting to expand the number ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
List Of Languages By Number Of Native Speakers
This article ranks human languages by their number of native speakers. However, all such rankings should be used with caution, because it is not possible to devise a coherent set of linguistic criteria for distinguishing languages in a dialect continuum. For example, a language is often defined as a set of varieties that are mutually intelligible, but independent national standard languages may be considered to be separate languages even though they are largely mutually intelligible, as in the case of Danish and Norwegian. Conversely, many commonly accepted languages, including German, Italian and even English, encompass varieties that are not mutually intelligible. While Arabic is sometimes considered a single language centred on Modern Standard Arabic, other authors describe its mutually unintelligible varieties as separate languages. Similarly, Chinese is sometimes viewed as a single language because of a shared culture and common literary language. It is also common to descr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Prestige Language
Prestige refers to a good reputation or high esteem; in earlier usage, ''prestige'' meant "showiness". (19th c.) Prestige may also refer to: Arts, entertainment and media Films * ''Prestige'' (film), a 1932 American film directed by Tay Garnett: woman travels to French Indochina to meet up with husband * ''The Prestige'' (film), a 2006 American thriller directed by Christopher Nolan Music * Prestige Records, American jazz record label * ''Prestige'' (Daddy Yankee album), a 2012 album by Daddy Yankee * ''The Prestige'' (album) Other uses in arts, entertainment, and media * ''Prestige'' (magazine), a Lebanese French-language women's fashion quarterly *Prestige, the final portion of a magic trick, typically a showy flourish (17th c.) *''The Prestige'', 1995 novel by Christopher Priest Brands and enterprises *Prestige (beer), a Haitian lager * Citi Prestige, a premium Citibank credit card *Ibanez RG Prestige, a brand of guitars manufactured by Ibanez *Plaxton Prestige, a singl ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Language Shift
Language shift, also known as language transfer or language replacement or language assimilation, is the process whereby a speech community shifts to a different language, usually over an extended period of time. Often, languages that are perceived to be higher status stabilise or spread at the expense of other languages that are perceived by their own speakers to be lower-status. An example is the shift from Gaulish to Latin during the time of the Roman Empire. Mechanisms Prehistory For prehistory, Forster et al. (2004) and Forster and Renfrew (2011) observe that there is a correlation of language shift with intrusive male Y chromosomes but not necessarily with intrusive female mtDNA. They conclude that technological innovation (the transition from hunting-gathering to farming, or from stone to metal tools) or military prowess (as in the abduction of British women by Vikings to Iceland) causes immigration of at least some men, who are perceived to be of higher status than loca ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ghil'ad Zuckermann
Ghil'ad Zuckermann ( he, גלעד צוקרמן, ; ) is an Israeli-born language revivalist and linguist who works in contact linguistics, lexicology and the study of language, culture and identity. Zuckermann is Professor of Linguistics and Chair of Endangered Languages at the University of Adelaide, Australia.Sarah Robinson, March 11, 2019, The LINGUIST ListFeatured Linguist: Ghil‘ad Zuckermann, accessed May 4, 2020 He is the president of the Australian Association for Jewish Studies. Overview Zuckermann was born in Tel Aviv in 1971 and raised in Eilat. He attended the United World College (UWC) of the Adriatic in 1987–1989. In 1997 he received an M.A. in Linguistics from the Adi Lautman Program at Tel Aviv University. In 1997–2000 he was Scatcherd European Scholar of the University of Oxford and Denise Skinner Graduate Scholar at St Hugh's College, receiving a D.Phil. (Oxon.) in 2000. While at Oxford, he served as president of the Jewish student group L'Chaim Socie ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
