Vanishing Voices: The Extinction of the World's LanguagesFew people know that nearly one hundred native languages once spoken in what is now California are near extinction, or that most of Australia's 250 aboriginal languages have vanished. In fact, at least half of the world's languages may die out in the next century. Daniel Nettle and Suzanne Romaine assert that this trend is far more than simply disturbing. Making explicit the link between language survival and environmental issues, they argue that the extinction of languages is part of the larger picture of near-total collapse of the worldwide ecosystem. Indeed, the authors contend that the struggle to preserve precious environmental resources-such as the rainforest-cannot be separated from the struggle to maintain diverse cultures, and that the causes of language death, like that of ecological destruction, lie at the intersection of ecology and politics. In addition to defending the world's endangered languages, the authors also pay homage to the last speakers of dying tongues, such as Red Thundercloud, a Native American in South Carolina; Ned Mandrell, with whom the Manx language passed away in 1974; and Arthur Bennett, an Australian who was the last person to know more than a few words of Mbabaram. In our languages lies the accumulated knowledge of humanity. Indeed, each language is a unique window on experience. Vanishing Voices is a call to preserve this resource, before it is too late. |
Contents
two A World of Diversity | |
three Lost WordsLost Worlds | |
four The Ecology of Language | |
five The Biological Wave | |
six The Economic Wave | |
Other editions - View all
Vanishing Voices: The Extinction of the World's Languages Daniel Nettle,Suzanne Romaine Limited preview - 2000 |
Vanishing Voices: The Extinction of the World's Languages Daniel Nettle,Suzanne Romaine Limited preview - 2000 |
Common terms and phrases
Aboriginal activities Africa agriculture America areas Australia become called Cambridge causes century Chapter choice classifier communities complex continued countries cultural death diversity dominant economic ecosystem English environment Europe European example exist extinction fact farming Figure fish forced forest French groups Hawaiian human hundred important increased Indian indigenous industrial instance Irish island knowledge Kurds land languages less linguistic living loss lost major Maori means metropolitan million minority names native natural origin Pacific Papua New Guinea particular percent plants policies political population preserve Press problems production reasons remaining result seen shift similar social societies speak speakers species spoken spread Taiap things thousand traditional tropical University village wave western