WHY DO PEOPLE PRESERVE LOCAL LANGUAGES? CHAPTER 5: LANGUAGE KEY ISSUE 4

PRESERVING LANGUAGE DIVERSITY o Extinct Languages – languages that are no longer used or read in daily activities o Ethnologue considers 473 languages as nearly extinct o Gothic and many languages in S. America are already extinct o Hebrew – example of reviving an nearly extinct language o Aramaic became dominant and Hebrew was only used in religious ceremonies o Challenges included creating about 4000 new words o Why?

PRESERVING LANGUAGE DIVERSITY o Celtic – preserving endangered languages o Once spoken throughout the British Isles o Now Gaelic (Irish & Scottish) & Brythonic (Welsh, Cornish, Breton) o Political and Military strength influences survival o Preserving languages o Requires a lot of time and resources o Most of all it requires committed people o Multilingual states o Sometimes it can cause great difficulty o Ex. Belgium (French vs. Flemish)

PRESERVING LANGUAGE DIVERSITY o Multilingual states o Sometimes it can cause great difficulty o Ex. Belgium (French vs. Flemish) o Isolated Languages o The spread of languages indicates the interaction of people o Isolated languages do not belong to a language family and seem unrelated to other languages o Basque – mountainous region language o Untouched by Indo-European language family o Icelandic – “purer” form of Norwegian b/c cause of lack of interaction

GLOBAL DOMINANCE OF ENGLISH o Lingua franca – a common, international language o Facilitates trade and business o English seems to be the lingua franca of international business o Other examples: Swahili (Africa), Hindi (S. Asia), Indonesian (SE Asia), and Russian (former USSR) o Pidgin language – simplified form of a lingua franca o Mixing parts of both languages and “mashing-up” words o Expansion Diffusion of English o Past = migration or conquest (relocation) o Present = expansion (snowballing effect) o Dialects can be an example of diffusion o Ex. Ebonics (viewed as good and bad)

GLOBAL DOMINANCE OF ENGLISH o Diffusion of other languages o Because of the widespread use of English it makes its way into other languages o Franglais = French + English o Not viewed favorably by many French o Spanglish = Spanish + English o Through new words or use of English words o Denglish = German + English o We borrow and steal words and expressions frequently in a global society. Music, TV, etc. mixes languages frequently.