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Last Native Speaker
Within the linguistic study of endangered languages, sociolinguists distinguish between different speaker types based on the type of competence they have acquired of the endangered language. Often when a community is gradually shifting away from an endangered language to a majority language, not all speakers acquire full linguistic competence; instead, speakers have varying degrees and types of competence depending on their exposure to the minority language in their upbringing. The relevance of speaker types in cases of language shift was first noted by Nancy Dorian, who coined the term semi-speaker to refer to those speakers of Sutherland Gaelic who were predominantly English-speaking and whose Gaelic competence was limited and showed considerable influence from English. Later studies added additional speaker types such as rememberers (who remember some words and phrases but have little or no grammatical competence and do not actively speak the language), and '' passive speakers' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Endangered Language
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] |
East Sutherland Gaelic
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Ned Maddrell
Edward "Ned" Maddrell (20 August 187727 December 1974) was a fisherman from the Isle of Man who, at the time of his death, was the last surviving native speaker of the Manx language. Early life Maddrell was born at Corvalley, near Cregneash on the Isle of Man, on 20 August 1877 to fisherman Thomas Maddrell and his wife Margaret Watterson. He spoke English until he moved to the village of Cregneash to live with relatives. It was here that Maddrell learned Manx, as his great-aunt Margaret Taubman could not speak English. Although Manx had begun to disappear as a community language for most of the Isle of Man in the second half of the 19th century, it lingered on slightly longer in some more remote areas such as Cregneash. Maddrell recalled having to act as an interpreter for the older inhabitants of the village who could not speak English. At the age of 14 Maddrell began working as a cook on a fishing boat, sailing from Port St Mary to Kinsale in Ireland and to Shetland off Scot ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ubykh Language
Ubykh or Päkhy was a Northwest Caucasian language once spoken by the Ubykh tribe of Circassians who originally lived along the eastern coast of the Black Sea before being deported ''en masse'' to Turkey in the Circassian genocide. The Ubykh language was ergative and polysynthetic, with a high degree of agglutination, with polypersonal verbal agreement and a very large number of distinct consonants but only two phonemically distinct vowels. With around eighty consonants, it had one of the largest inventories of consonants in the world, and the largest number for any language without clicks. The name Ubykh is derived from (), its name in the Adyghe language. It is known in linguistic literature by many names: variants of Ubykh, such as ''Ubikh'', ( French); and its Germanised variant (from Ubykh ). Major features Ubykh is distinguished by the following features, some of which are shared with other Northwest Caucasian languages: * It is ergative, making no syntactic d ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tevfik Esenç
Tevfik Esenç (1904 – 7 October 1992) was a Turkish citizen of Circassian origin, known for being the last speaker of the Ubykh language. He was fluent in Ubykh, Adyghe and Turkish. After his death in 1992, the Ubykh language went extinct despite the efforts and work of numerous linguists to revive it. Nevertheless, Esenç is single-handedly responsible for the world's current knowledge of Ubykh language and culture being as extensive and detailed as it is. Biography Esenç was raised by his Ubykh-speaking grandparents for a time in the village of Hacıosman ( Ubykh: ''Lak°'ạ́ṡ°a''; Adyghe: ''Hundjahabl'') in Turkey, and he served a term as the ''muhtar'' (mayor) of that village, before receiving a post in the civil service of Istanbul. There, he was able to do a great deal of work with the French linguist Georges Dumézil and his associate Georges Charachidzé to help record his language, although not all the writings of Charachidzé (1930-2010) have been publ ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Language Survey
A language survey is conducted around the world for a variety of reasons. *measuring people's ability to speak and understand another language (usually community based, not school based) ( multilingualism) *studying people's attitudes about different languages (Rensch 1993) *evaluating the differences and similarities in speech of communities that speak related speech forms, noting comprehension or collecting details of linguistic form ( dialectology) *assessing the vitality of languages that may be disappearing ( language death) *doing initial descriptions of languages in areas that are linguistically undescribed Methods Methods used in language surveys depend on the questions that the survey is trying to answer. Methods used include collecting word lists, playing recorded texts to assess comprehension, sentence repetition tests, questionnaires, group and individual interviews, retelling of stories, direct observation, pointing to pictures after listening to instructions, and ev ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mesmes Language
The Mesmes language is an extinct West Gurage language, one of the Ethiopian Semitic languages spoken in Ethiopia. There are still many people who claim the Mesmes ethnic identity, but none who speak the language. The last speaker of the language was interviewed by a language survey team when he was approximately 80 years old. He had not spoken the language for 30 years, having nobody to speak it with since his brother died. The Mesmes have shifted to speaking the Hadiyya language. However, they still maintain some cultural distinctives, including their own style of house architecture. The comparative method has shown that the language is most closely related to the Inor variety of Gurage.Ahland (2010), p. 88 References *Ahland, Michael Bryan. (2010). ''Language death in Mesmes''. Dallas: SIL International and the University of Texas at Arlington. *Bustorf, Dirk. (2007). "Mäsmäs”, in: Siegbert Uhlig (ed.): Encyclopaedia Aethiopica The ''Encyclopaedia Aethiopica'' ( ... [...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] |
Cornish Language
Cornish (Standard Written Form: or ) , is a Southwestern Brittonic language, Southwestern Brittonic language of the Celtic language family. It is a List of revived languages, revived language, having become Extinct language, extinct as a living community language in Cornwall at the Last speaker of the Cornish language, end of the 18th century. However, knowledge of Cornish, including speaking ability to a certain extent, continued to be passed on within families and by individuals, and Cornish language revival, a revival began in the early 20th century. The language has a growing number of second language speakers, and a very small number of families now raise children to speak revived Cornish as a first language. Cornish is currently recognised under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages, and the language is often described as an important part of Cornish identity, culture and heritage. Along with Welsh language, Welsh and Breton language, Breton, Cornish is ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cornwall
Cornwall (; kw, Kernow ) is a historic county and ceremonial county in South West England. It is recognised as one of the Celtic nations, and is the homeland of the Cornish people. Cornwall is bordered to the north and west by the Atlantic Ocean, to the south by the English Channel, and to the east by the county of Devon, with the River Tamar forming the border between them. Cornwall forms the westernmost part of the South West Peninsula of the island of Great Britain. The southwesternmost point is Land's End and the southernmost Lizard Point. Cornwall has a population of and an area of . The county has been administered since 2009 by the unitary authority, Cornwall Council. The ceremonial county of Cornwall also includes the Isles of Scilly, which are administered separately. The administrative centre of Cornwall is Truro, its only city. Cornwall was formerly a Brythonic kingdom and subsequently a royal duchy. It is the cultural and ethnic origin of the Cornish dias ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dolly Pentreath
Dorothy Pentreath (16 May 1692 aptised– 26 December 1777) was a fishwife from Mousehole, Cornwall, England. She is the best-known of the last fluent speakers of the Cornish language. She is also often credited as the last known native speaker of Cornish, although sources support the existence of other younger speakers of the language who survived her. Biography Early life Pentreath was born in Mousehole, Cornwall. She was baptised on 16 May 1692, the second of six known children of fisherman Nicholas Pentreath and his second wife Jone Pentreath. She later claimed that she could not speak a word of English until the age of 20. Whether or not this is correct, Cornish was her first language. In old age, she remembered that as a child she had sold fish at Penzance in the Cornish language, which most local inhabitants (even the gentry) then understood.Peter Berresford Ellis, ''The Cornish language and its literature''pp. 115–118online She lived in the parish of Paul, next to ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Heritage Language
A heritage language is a minority language (either immigrant or indigenous) learned by its speakers at home as children, and difficult to be fully developed because of insufficient input from the social environment. The speakers grow up with a different dominant language in which they become more competent. Polinsky and Kagan label it as a continuum (taken from Valdés definition of heritage language) that ranges from fluent speakers to barely-speaking individuals of the home language. In some countries or cultures which determine a person's mother tongue by the ethnic group they belong to, a heritage language would be linked to the native language. The term can also refer to the language of a person's family or community that the person does not speak or understand, but identifies with culturally. Definitions and use Heritage language is a language which is predominantly spoken by "nonsocietal" groups and linguistic minorities. In various fields, such as foreign language educ ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
