Spoken Here: Travels Among Threatened Languages (Hardcover)

by Mark Abley (Author) "AN OLD MAN watches a milky ocean roll in to the shore..." (more)
Key Phrases: Isle of Man, New York, North America (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
There are roughly 6,000 languages in use in the world today, most of them spoken by a tiny number of people-further proof of humanity's ability to generate intoxicating variety. Sadly, the processes of linguistic imperialism may still be as strong as they have ever been; expansion of the major world languages, particularly English, is, according to Abley, likely to bring about the elimination of most of these languages by century's end. Canadian journalist Abley shrewdly frontloads his book with some of the most exotic languages before moving on to better-known cases (which are also considerably less at risk) such as Proven‡al, Yiddish and Welsh. Readers who think they "get" how languages work may be startled by the considerable deviation from Western norms: for instance, Murrinh-Patha, spoken in Australia, boasts a bewilderingly complex system of pronouns; Mi'kmaq, from eastern Canada and Maine, and Boro, a northern Indian tongue, all but eschew nouns. To read these accounts of dwindling languages-and their often forlorn, marginalized speakers-is to gain insight into the powerful colonial forces still in play. Abley's informal approach makes this more a travel book than a language book; while describing the people and places in affecting detail, he sometimes stints in depicting the languages. Abley also sometimes conflates the extinction of a language with that of the people who speak it; however, his contention rings true that the disappearance of these languages represents "a loss beyond estimation." This generous, sorrow-tinged book is an informative and eloquent reminder of a richness that may not exist much longer.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From The New Yorker
Of the six thousand or so languages that exist today, more than ninety per cent are endangered. Abley has travelled as far afield as arctic Canada and the Timor Sea documenting the survival strategies or last gasps of some of these languages. The state of Israel resurrected Hebrew, albeit at the expense of Yiddish and Ladino. Faroese, a descendant of Old Norse, is a source of pride to the inhabitants of the Faeroe Islands, but the young "see Faroese as embodying the past, Danish the present, and English the future." English, the language of the marketplace, is spoken by more people than any other language in history, and Abley seems resigned to the judgment of Li Yang, who claims "to have taught English to more than twenty million Chinese": "Chinese people don't learn English because they love it, but because Coca-Cola and Microsoft rule the world."
Copyright © 2005 The New Yorker

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 336 pages
• Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt; First Edition edition (August 6, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 061823649X
• ISBN-13: 978-0618236497
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.2 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (21 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #790,001 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

48 of 49 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars a valuable handbook, October 18, 2003

By	G. B. Talovich (Wulai, Taiwan, ROC) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

In Wulai, the aboriginal village I live in, the cutoff is in the twenties. Those over thirty speak Tayal (also Atayal; an Austronesian language of Taiwan) as their first language. Those under twenty understand it pretty well, but rarely speak more than a few phrases. I make a point of speaking to children in my rudimentary Tayal, so they can practice ¡V and show off - without the embarrassment of being caught making a mistake. I nag parents to encourage their children to speak Tayal: if you don't, a tradition of over six thousand years will die with you. Several tribal elders have asked me to teach them how to write Tayal in roman letters. Children are elated to see their grandparents struggling with pen and paper, and this encourages them to repeat what their elders are saying. The administration started Tayal classes in Wulai Elementary, but I hear funding is being cut now that the Party feels one hour of Tayal a week is not going to bring them votes. Tayal is losing ground to Mandarin. What is to be done?

What is to be done? Spoken Here is practically a handbook for me, of things I can try, things I can avoid, in my personal crusade to impress Tayal on the next generation. The author is alert to cant, dogma, and dead-end thinking, so the reader can see the fallacies of certain viewpoints. The writing is fluid and informative. His sympathy to the speakers of these languages makes their plights come alive.

I wish books like this came with a CD. Looking at the word Tayal, did you have any clue that it is pronounced dah-YEN? If I write a Tayal word such as qsnuw or mksingut, does that give you any idea of how to pronounce it? I would love to hear what Yuchi, Wangkajunga, or Mohawk actually sound like (although a friend who has been there told me Welsh sounds like angry geese). I have listened to a couple Australian Aboriginal languages by tracking down their websites, which raises my main ¡V albeit minor - complaint about this book. In the Sources, he tells us things like "see the Web site of the Maori Language Commission" or "All these organizations have web sites." It would have burdened him very little, and given the book completeness, if he had taken the trouble to provide the http addresses for those sites!

17 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars loving language diversity , March 22, 2005

By	Friederike Knabe (Ottawa, Ontario Canada) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

Have you ever wondered how you would react if *your* language was threatened with extinction? Would you miss it at all? What more would you lose than words and phrases? Mark Abley tracked the world for 10 years to pursue these and related questions. His discoveries make for an intriguing read spiked with some learning about local tongues like Boro, Yuchi, Provençal or Manx.

Language is used to express the worldview of its speakers, bur does it also shape and influence it? Are the connotations that a word's meaning carries consciously passed on? Many traditional languages have in common that they are more complicated in their grammar than modern ones. Some prescribe human kinships in great detail and maintain a different vocabulary for each gender to use. Does these aspects have a bearing on the human interrelationships? The author pursues the answers from the elders, language teachers and linguistic experts. Of particular interest to him are languages that structure sentences around verbs rather than nouns, as we are used to. Placing the "action" in the centre of a phrase results in a different perspective on life, he argues, making it more inclusive of the surroundings and reducing the primary role of the self. The Boro language, spoken in northern India, has one-verb expressions that require full sentences when translated into English: "gagrom", for example, means "to search for a thing below the water by trampling" or "mokhrob" - to express anger by a sidelong glance. Mohawk must be one of the most complex languages in its use of verbs. In addition to describing the action "a verb must indicate the agent, recipient and the time of the action". There are other elements to consider too, such as the relationships to be expressed or whether it is one-time or habitual; all these components are represented in a series of pre- and suffixes.

Another aspect of the diversity of language that captivates the author, is the naming of objects, like the three or more distinct names for "blue-tongue lizard" in Wangkajunga, an Australian Aborigine language. Nobody seems to knows how they differ from each other. Abley discusses with a Mohawk elder the meaning of the central concepts of Iroquois law: peace, power and righteousness. All three have complex connotations that for non-speakers require detailed explanations. The last concept, for example, can also mean "beautiful" or "good" as well as "righteousness". This is but one example that underscores a unique worldview of its speakers that is influenced by language. In turn, the speakers' perspective continues to influence the evolving language. Some languages are flexible and adjust, developing terms reflecting modern life. Still, others are helpless in this regard and are overrun by the majority language or the universal language, English, the "Walmart" of communication.

While Abley discusses certain linguistic aspects of the selected languages in some detail, Spoken Here is primarily a human interest story and quite removed from dry technical linguistics. The author describes his travels to interesting places, his meetings with scientists and researchers. He commends their work on recording a local threatened language and marvels with them at the grammatical intricacies of another. His primary interest are the individuals who attempt to save or rekindle their (grand)parents' tongues. He describes their surroundings, their community and profiles them with their aspirations and dreams. Through him, we meet elders who recall a time when their language was alive and well. Most activists feel that their language is a vital part of their identity that is worth saving. Others, often the younger people, feel motivated to pick theirs up, almost like a new hobby.

Will the threatened languages survive? Some will, he argues, and gives Manx, Welsh and Mohawk as examples. Political reasons, the ambition to restore some autonomy from a strong neighbour, play an important part in the efforts to rekindle a local language. He compares language diversity with biological diversity of plants and animals. Both are in danger of being eroded or destroyed. The world will be a poorer place without them.

Abley's account of his encounters make an enjoyable read. His selection of places he visited and languages to explore was to a degree arbitrary and sometimes coincidental, such as the discovery of Boro. He pursued leads from people and from respective studies that intrigued him. At times the reader might lose interest in a particularly detailed description of political events surrounding an endangered language issue. Africa, a continent extremely rich in traditional and threatened local languages, was unfortunately not on his travel routes. Experiences there might well have enriched the author's perspectives and deepened the readers' exposure to the challenges and opportunities of Africa's extraordinary diversity. For anybody interested in finding out more about the diverse world of language, this is a good start. [Friederike Knabe]

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Another fun title for us amateur linguists..., December 13, 2005

By	Nacozari - See all my reviews

This review is from: Spoken Here: Travels Among Threatened Languages (Paperback)

If you are an amateur linguist like me, and you love books like Bill Bryson's "Mother Tongue" or "Made in America", or others like "The Language Instinct" by Steven Pinker, "Do You Speak American?" or any of the other linguistics titles that have been published in recent years for the interested but not necessarily expert public to consume, then you will probably enjoy this look at engangered languages, as well.

Some of the reviewers here seem to be seeking out a very scholarly, fully documented work, but I think Abley's purpose in writing "Spoken Here" was to take a closer look at the human perspective of language disappearance. While he mentions some of the features of the languages which are vanishing (Welsh, some aboriginal Australian languages, Provençal, Manx, Yiddish, Mohawk, various other indigenous languages of the Americas), the real accent is placed on how the gradual disappearance took place and what its effect has been on the people who lost such a treasure.

He places a bit of blame on certain people for causing language disappearance and criticizes others for their tactics in trying to restore some languages, but I believe he shows all the options and perspectives, which makes the book especially interesting. In the country where I live, Spain, there are at least 5-6 such endangered languages (though in what is quite an unusual policy, the government supports most of these languages here) and I think it would make the Spanish-speaking majority a bit more sympathetic and understanding if they read a book like "Spoken Here."

It is a book that would show them why losing a language may be incredibly traumatic to its last speakers, what these languages have to offer, and above all it demonstrates that saving a language requires a much larger effort than most majority-language-speakers are willing to admit. I think the most important lesson to be learned is that just allowing a minority language to be spoken is not NEARLY enough to ensure its survival (this is as far as most people are willing to go in protecting minority languages in Spain), which requires money, protective laws, widespread free classes and required use in at least certain realms. Otherwise the language is doomed.