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Rememberer
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 left. Although languages have always become extinct throughout human history, endangered languages are currently dying at an accelerated rate because of globalization, mass migration, cultural replacement, imperialism, neocolonialism and linguicide (language killing). Language shift most commonly occurs when speakers switch to a language associated with social or economic power or one spoken more widely, leading to the gradual decline and eventual death of the endangered language. The process of language shift is often infl ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
East Sutherland Gaelic
East Sutherland Gaelic ( ) is an extinct dialect of Scottish Gaelic that was spoken in fishing villages on the eastern coast of Sutherland, especially in Brora, Golspie, and Embo. History The Scottish Gaelic language has been in decline since the fourteenth century, when its speakers were a majority of Scotland's population, due to the higher prestige of Scots, then later of English. The East Sutherland dialect was spoken in coastal villages by fisherfolk descended from Gaelic speakers who had been evicted from the fertile interior valleys of Sutherland during the Highland Clearances of the early nineteenth century. Because of their occupational, social, and geographical isolation, the fisherfolk retained the use of the Gaelic language about half a century longer than surrounding communities, in the process becoming isolated from other dialects of Gaelic. East Sutherland speakers could only understand other dialects of Gaelic with difficulty, if at all. By the turn of t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ned Maddrell
Edward Maddrell (20 August 187727 December 1974) was a Manx fisherman who, at the time of his death, was the last surviving native speaker of the Manx language. Life Maddrell was born on 20 August 1877 at Corvalley, near Cregneash, on the Isle of Man, the son of Thomas Maddrell and 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 Scotland in search of herring. He married ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ubykh Language
Ubykh is an extinct Northwest Caucasian language once spoken by the Ubykh people, an ethnic group of Circassian nation who originally inhabited the eastern coast of the Black Sea before being deported ''en masse'' to the Ottoman Empire during the Circassian genocide. The Ubykh language is 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 has 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 (), 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 langua ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tevfik Esenç
Tevfik Esenç (; 1904 – 7 October 1992) was a Turkish citizen of Ubykh 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: ''Lek'uaşüa /lɜkʷʼɐ́ɕʷɜ/''; 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) hav ... [...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 *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 even internet surve ... [...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, named Abegaz, 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. A study of the phonology of Mesmes has shown evidence of rhinoglottophilia.Ahland, Michael. "Nasal spreading, rhinoglottophilia and the genesis of a non-etymological nasal consonant in Mesmes." In ''Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society'', vol. 31, no. 1, pp. ... [...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 ... [...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. Along with Welsh language, Welsh and Breton language, Breton, Cornish descends from Common Brittonic, a language once spoken widely across Great Britain. For much of the Middle Ages, medieval period Cornish was the main language of Cornwall, until it was gradually pushed westwards by the spread of English language, English. Cornish remained a vernacular, common community language in parts of Cornwall until the mid-18th century, and there is some evidence for traditional speakers persisting into the 19th century. Cornish became extinct language, extinct as a living community language in Cornwall by the last speaker of the Cornish language, end of the 18th century, although knowledge of Cornish, including speaking ability to a certain extent, persisted within some families and individuals. Cornish language revival, A revival started in the e ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cornwall
Cornwall (; or ) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South West England. It is also one of the Celtic nations and the homeland of the Cornish people. The county is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, Devon to the east, and the English Channel to the south. The largest urban area is the Redruth and Camborne conurbation. The county is predominantly rural, with an area of and population of 568,210. After the Redruth-Camborne conurbation, the largest settlements are Falmouth, Cornwall, Falmouth, Penzance, Newquay, St Austell, and Truro. For Local government in England, local government purposes most of Cornwall is a Unitary authorities of England, unitary authority area, with the Isles of Scilly governed by a Council of the Isles of Scilly, unique local authority. The Cornish nationalism, Cornish nationalist movement disputes the constitutional status of Cornwall and seeks greater autonomy within the United Kingdom. Cornwall is the weste ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dolly Pentreath
Dorothy Pentreath ( 16 May 169226 December 1777) was a Cornish fishwife. She is one of the last known 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, and 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 Mousehole. Perhaps due to poverty, Pentr ... [...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 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
