Customer Reviews

Spoken Here: Travels Among Threatened Languagues

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Linguists are interested in the great divesity of ways the human mind has devised to express thought. The most fascinating thing about lesser used languages is the data they can provide on this wealth of expession and perception.Abley's look at the linguistic situation in the world is similar to that of conservationists who lament the disappearance of species and the consequent shrinking 'gene pool', the loss of bio-diversity. While this may be true, life on earth has meant that certain species die out and new ones emerge. The process has been going on since life began. The same is true of language(s). One language dies out and another is born. Widely used languages (Latin, for example) break up into many new languages when their time has come. When a group gives up using a language, it is for very real and practical reasons. While a language may be a 1-800 number to one's ancestors, it can also be a prison cutting off the outside world. The 'threatened' langauges of the world are mainly to be found in isolated areas where the benefits of modern life -- medicine, education to name two -- are hard to come by. Speakers feel that adopting a new language betters their lives and opens up new opportunities. With time, English will disappear giving rise to many new languages in turn. While the book's elegiac tone for the loss of language captures the sadness of these deaths, this book also smacks of the patronizing paternalism of first world do-gooders who think they know best.