How to Keep Your Language Alive: A Commonsense Approach to One-On-One Language Learning [Paperback]

Leanne Hinton (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 1890771422 | ISBN-13: 978-1890771423 | Publication Date: June 1, 2001

New speakers for endangered languages

Amid worldwide accounts of dying languages, author Leanne Hinton and a group of dedicated language activists are doing something about it: they have created a master-apprentice language program, a one-on-one approach that has been remarkably successful in ensuring new speakers will take the place of those, often elderly, who are fluent in an endangered language.

How to Keep Your Language Alive is a manual for students of all languages, from Yurok to Yiddish, Washoe to Welsh; complete with exercises that can--can and should--be done in the most ordinary of settings, written with great simplicity and directness by a member of the linguistics faculty at the University of California, Berkeley.

Editorial Reviews

Review

''A magnificently lucid and inspirational doorway to the world of human communication, and a rallying cry for language preservation.'' --Peter Nabokov, author and anthropologist

From the Publisher

Awash in worldwide accounts of dying languages, author Leanne Hinton and a group of dedicated language activists are doing something about it: they have created a master-apprentice language program, a one-on-one approach that has been remarkably successful in ensuring that new speakers will take the place of those, often elderly, who are fluent in endangered languages. Written with great simplicity and directness by a member of the linguistics faculty at the University of California, Berkeley, it is both authoritative and accessible.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 144 pages
• Publisher: Heyday (June 1, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1890771422
• ISBN-13: 978-1890771423
• Product Dimensions: 9.7 x 6.8 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #392,745 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Commonsense + very encouraging, January 1, 2003

By 

Leah Bowe - See all my reviews

This review is from: How to Keep Your Language Alive: A Commonsense Approach to One-On-One Language Learning (Paperback)

An excellent primer to revitalizing Indigenous languages, from a scholar who clearly has spent a long time thinking about the pitfalls inherent to such a task.

4.0 out of 5 stars How to Keep Your Language Alive, December 5, 2011

By 

Sakoieta Widrick "Sakoieta' Widrick" (Grand River Six Nations Iroquois Territory, Ontario) - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: How to Keep Your Language Alive: A Commonsense Approach to One-On-One Language Learning (Paperback)

This book is an excellent book with good information about different ways to make the most out of energy and effort spent at either relearning languages of retaining them. Good stuff.