Sprognyheder

Recently deceased language preserved online

Jag vet inte vilken gång i ordningen det är som det påpekas att det finns en korrelation mellan biologisk och språklig diversitet. Nu är det dags igen, och världen blir lika imponerad

Gyani Maiya Sen, a 75-year-old woman from western Nepal, can perhaps be forgiven for feeling that the weight of the world rests on her shoulders. She is the only person still alive in Nepal who fluently speaks the Kusunda language. The unknown origins and mysterious sentence structures of Kusunda have long baffled linguists.

These biodiversity hotspots and wilderness areas must be among our top priorities for terrestrial conservation if we hope to preserve Earth's natural ecosystem services and biodiversity for future generations of people.

Det är många som tror att engelskans expansion sker av sig självt, att det är ett resultat av en naturlag. Detta är en mycket naiv uppfattning. Självfallet finns det mycket resursstarka aktörer, som driver på utvecklingen, eftersom ett stort språk inte bara genererar extraprofiter utan också kulturellt och politiskt inflytande. I en artikel i Guardian Weekly den 13/3 tar Robert Phillipson upp några talande exempel:

India is one of the most linguistically diverse countries. Just how diverse is a matter of contention, but it is believed between 850 and 900 distinct languages are spoken in India, though only 122 are recognised in the census and just 22 are scheduled as official languages in the constitution. Of mother tongues, it was estimated in 1961 that India was home to more than 1600. India is also losing languages faster than any other nation.

Linguists have been predicting the death of Alaska Native languages for decades now, and whether or not those predictions prove accurate comes down to the choices you and I make on a daily basis. The past 200 years have been devastating; from boarding schools to disease to social discriminations, we are now left with the aftermath of successful attempts to destroy languages and cultures. But that does not mean we have to resign our efforts or just allow this to happen

Eine mathematisch-sprachliche Doppelbegabung war er schon als Schüler: der Gießener Mathematikprofessor und Sprachwissenschaftler Ernst Kausen. Bei Buske bringt er in zwei Bänden ein Mammutwerk für Fachwelt und interessierte Laien heraus: "Die indogermanischen Sprachen" und "Die Sprachfamilien der Welt".

Australia, which was once home to 200 languages, now suffers from the highest rate of language extinction in the world.

The Ladino language is in trouble. However, one group of singers from Los Angeles is helping it find a second life through music.

A group from the Institutions Markets Technologies' Lucca Institute for Advanced Studies in Italy, describe how they have found after studying English, Spanish and Hebrew trends, that words are being dropped from languages faster and new ones added at a slower rate, than at any other time over the past three hundred years.

Over hele verden er sprog ved at uddø. Sprogforskere prøver at forhindre det, men i sidste ende er det afhængigt af de, der oprindeligt talte sproget.

Known to its speakers as di lanshi (= the language), Berbice Dutch is officially extinct, after the death of its last fluent speakers, Albertha Bell and Arnold King, a few years ago. The language is of special interest to linguists because of its African linkages, with a group of languages spoken in the Southern coastal delta area of Nigeria, the Eastern Ijo languages.

In 1993, Jessie Little Doe Baird had dreams in a language that her Wampanoag people stopped using more than 100 years ago. The new PBS film We Still Live Here shows how they brought their language back to life. Host Michel Martin speaks with director Anne Makepeace and Troy Currence, vice president of the Wopanaak Language Reclamation Project.

Every day, indigenous languages in Latin America are slipping away: blame Spanish-only schooling, or general prejudice against local tongues or transactions that usually require Spanish.

Exactly 100 years ago, a starving Indian who spoke no recognizable language was captured near an Oroville slaughterhouse.

"Bei kleineren Sprachgemeinschaften können beispielsweise Katastrophen oder Völkermord dazu führen, dass alle Sprecher auf einmal sterben", sagt René Schiering, Vorstandsmitglied der Gesellschaft für Bedrohte Sprachen. Weitaus häufiger sei es jedoch so, dass Sprecher ihre Sprache zugunsten einer prestigeträchtigeren Mehrheits- oder Verkehrssprache aufgäben. "Dies ist oft die direkte Folge von Kolonisation und Bildung von Nationalstaaten", sagt er.

It's the language that gave us the words for chocolate and tomato. Now a small group of New Yorkers wants to make sure the enigmatic-sounding tongue of the Aztecs, Nahuatl, is preserved in the Big Apple. "It's a beautiful language, full of complexities, but it's also dying," said Irwin Sanchez, 32, a native Nahuatl speaker. "I'm trying to rescue it, here in the city."

Brazilian officials fear for the survival of an isolated Amazon group after a remote guard post on the Peru-Brazil border was overrun by heavily armed suspected drug traffickers.

Tlingit speakers and educators are fighting to keep that language alive. As those at Sealaska Heritage Institute (SHI) put it, creating new speakers will be key in accomplishing this. The Native institute has just introduced a new Tlingit language card program as part of this mission.

The National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) and the National Science Foundation (NSF) today announced the award of 10 fellowships and 24 institutional grants totaling $3.9 million in the agencies ongoing Documenting Endangered Languages (DEL) program.

Brenda Lintinger decided to do more than learn a new language _ she set out to resurrect the ancient tongue of her own Tunica Indian tribe, words that had not been uttered for more than 60 years.

Knap halvdelen af verdens 6700 sprog er i fare for at forsvinde. Sammen med sprogene forsvinder både identitet, kulturhistorie og måder at beskrive verden på. Derfor er sprogdøden et kulturtab, vi må forhindre hurtigst muligt, påpeger sprogforskere