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Faculty Contact Information: This page is web enhancement page intended for those who have signed up for UMUC's weekend seminar on Minorty & Endangered Language of the World. Much of the material (below) replicates the information found on the UMUC generic syllabus for this seminar; thus, you may ignore that syallabus and regard what follows as the syllabus. The other websites (listed below this one) on that generic syllabus page are not necessary, but, by all means, look at them if you like. Reading material for this seminar is at this link—that is, the articles under the heading of "Minority & Endangered Language." Generally, they are short. You don't have to read them all, but you should look around and read a few if you want to get a head-start on on the seminar. ALL of the reading material that you will need for this seminar is in that section of the page (that is, items 47 through 72 plus the 5 add-ons after number 72). Course Description The seminar is both (1) a survey course and (2) a sociolinguistic enquiry. (1) The "survey" part will look first at what languages are spoken in the world and how they have come to be broken down into "majority" and "minority" languages. We will explore the difference between "minority" and "endangered" languages; that is, Basque and Navajo, for example, are both minority languages but are in no danger of dying out. On the other hand, many native North American languages have so few speakers that they have now dropped below the "survival threshold," which is to say that the current generation of speakers is the last. The situation is similarly critical in virtually every environment where colonial languages have been imposed on indigenous peoples by conquest—all the Americas, Africa, Asia and Australia. (The exceptions—British India, for example—will be discussed.) Besides this obvious effect of colonization, "endangered" also applies to a number of minority languages being overwhelmed in Europe by entrenched "big brother" majority languages. This happens for a number of reasons, largely economic. Facility of electronic communication is another factor encouraging the adopting of an established majority language—but, possibly (and this is intriguing!) now helping in the maintenance of some endangered languages (that is, you can now find Basque and Welsh newspapers on-line.) (2) The "sociolinguistic enquiry" deals with
(a) with "how" and "why" a language becomes a minority or endangered
one;
that is, primarily colonization and economics, but even natural
linguistic
processes such as rates of language change, creolization and
pidginization;
and (b) with the assumption that it is worthwhile to
preserve
languages, to keep them from dying out. Thus, we will look at various
efforts
around the world in that direction. (For example, there is now Navajo
mass-media
in Arizona, including a TV station, as well as a Navajo-language
Community College; you can now buy Basque newspapers in Spain; the
Quechua
language in South America, is distinguished by being the only
indigenous
language of the Americas that has more(!)
native speakers now than
before
the discovery of America. Course Goals/Objectives: At the end of the seminar, students will know the answers to the following questions: 1. How and why are the languages of the world divided into
"families"? Course Introduction: Most resource materials on this subject claim that there are about 6,000 languages spoken in the world today. That number comes as a surprise to most people, given the fact that the same sources say that of the six billion people on Earth, about one-quarter of them speak either Chinese or English as a native tongue—only two languages out of the six thousand! Another 15 or 20 languages take up about 90% of the rest of the population of the planet. A "minority language," by defintion, might be one spoken by a minority group in a given area. By that token, it would be accurate to say that Spanish is a minority language in the United States. Yet, that would not be a definition of what we really mean when we say "minority language". We mean, by that term, a language that—considering the world at large—is (1) spoken by a relatively small number of people, and (2) is not the main or official language of a nation state. Swedish, for example, is spoken by only seven million people, but would not be on the list of "minority" languages. Obviously, Spanish, though a minority language in the US, is not on that list, either, since it has had ample opportunity through colonial expansion to develop into one of most widely-spoken languages in the world. Most languages, however, have not had this opportunity and are still more or less confined within their original, historical boundaries: the Basque language in parts of Spain and France; Gaelic in the British Isles; Navajo in the southwestern United States; Twi in Ghana; Ainu in Japan, and so on. That is the spirit in which we must understand the term "minority language". By general defintion, a language is "endangered" if children
in the
community no longer speak it (having abandoned it, say, for a
"majority"
language). After that, extinction follows. According to the
newsletter of
The
Foundation
for Endangered Languages, "...half of the world's six thousand
languages
will become extinct in the next century." Indeed, it is a safe
bet that
every week, the last speaker of some small language in the words dies.
The language, of course, with its culture and history dies with the
speaker.
Historically, languages have died out due to invasion and conquest and,
more recently, extreme social and economic pressure from larger,
overbearing
languages and cultures. And after that, it is questionable if a
language can be successfully revived. If you are interested in these
phenomena, you
will
like this course. Course Schedule: Day 1 We will examine how the languages of the world are grouped into such families as Indo-European, Finno-Ugric, Sino-Tibetan, etc. and note the most prominent languages in these families, as well as the minority and endangered languages. We will also discuss how languages are compared grammatically and lexically as a basis for grouping them into one "family" or another. We will begin the discussion of minority languages by discussing the difference between a minority language and an endangered language. We will discuss (1) how the historical phenomenon of
colonialism has
partially been responsible for the dominance of certain languages, and
(2) the current dominance of some languages due to factors other
than colonialism. We will examine the situations and conflicts
that
can arise when minority languages come into contact with majority
languages. Participants in the seminar should pick one of the items on
the linked article page (above) and prepare it for the next day. Day 2 Everyone gives a short (5 minute) presentation on the
article that he or she chose yesterday. We will discuss the phenomenon of "official" languages, such as French in the Canadian province of Quebec, Arabic in Algeria, and English in India (as well as, potentially, official English in the US) and how this effects the state of minority languages. We will discuss the current state of efforts to help preserve smaller languages around the world-what associations there are, how the media are involved, the resurgence of regionalism in many countries, etc. The final project is due on the last day of the class. The final exam will be given at the end of the second day of class. back to top Grading: In a
two-day course, obviously attendance is part of the grade. Do NOT plan
on missing a day or even a significant part of a day. The grade is
based 50% on attendance and participation, 50% on the paper (see below).
Paper/project:
The paper will be a short project about a
single language
that the student has chosen. The first section will be the student's
individual statement of the problem of minority and endangered
languages. Then, the student is free to follow his or her discretion
and concentrate on a family of languages-say, native American
languages, and briefly state what the situation is, what the prospects
are for "survival." Students have one week after the seminar to
turn in
the paper. To read an example of a sample paper, click here.
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