Endangered Languages and Cultures

Linguistic diversity and scholarship

5 February 201116 April 2007 by admin

Almost ten years ago, the late Ken Hale argued that global language destruction will lead to loss of important information to linguistics and other sciences. In an article called “On endangered languages and the importance of linguistic diversity” published in Endangered Languages: Language Loss and Community Response edited by Lenore A. Grenoble and Lindsay J. Whaley. Ken wrote:

The loss of linguistic diversity is a loss to scholarship and science. – While a major goal of linguistic science is to define universal grammar, i.e. to determine what is constant and invariant in the grammars of all natural languages, attainment of that goal is severely hampered, some would say impossible, in the absence of linguistic diversity.

Piranha Dandy

5 February 201115 April 2007 by Jane Simpson

Chronologically and perhaps otherwise connected with Peter Austin’s post on CDFM are discussions of Dan Everett’s claims about the Pirahã, a Brazilian group, which have hit the news recently (thanks Jeremy). The good thing is that Everett’s claims can be tested. The hyperbole surrounding them is probably bad – for the people, and for the … Read more

There’s fieldwork and there’s fieldwork

5 February 201110 April 2007 by admin

As someone who is currently supervising PhD students undertaking fieldwork in various locations around the world, the health and safety of my students is a fundamental concern. This was especially brought home a week ago when an 8.0 earthquake and resulting tsunami devastated coastal villages in the western Solomon Islands, including the village on Ranongga Island where one of our PhD students is working. Fortunately she was in a boat at sea when the earthquake hit and was OK; the same cannot be said for Ranongga Island however. Communications with the area are difficult but it appears that several people died, many were injured, and the village and everything in it (including her fieldnotes and equipment) may have been destroyed.

On Patois

5 February 20116 April 2007 by admin

I spent last week in Lyon working on plans for collaborative teaching and research with Colette Grinevald and her colleagues at Lyon-2 University and the CNRS DDL research laboratory. This will include a summer school on language documentation planned for June-July 2008 (we will announce more details soon), joint workshops and conferences, and development of a European Masters programme.
On Saturday (31st March) Michel Bert, who also teaches at Lyon-2 and is a researcher in the CNRS ICAR research laboratory, invited Colette and me to accompany him south from Lyon along the Rhône River to visit the field sites where he has been collecting data on the Franco-Provençal language over the past 10 years. Michel’s PhD dissertation is a detailed study of this language based on data he collected from over 150 consultants.

Toolbox on a Mac

5 February 20114 April 2007 by admin

My nightmare with Windows is finally over.
Yay! Crossover! It rules!
Late last year my G4 ibook came to a premature demise, probably a victim of all the dust and the ruts on the road to Wadeye from Daly River, which I did enough times to make me and my car age. Can’t have done the laptop much good.
So I bought an Intel mac thinking ‘great now I can run Toolbox‘. I really wasted a lot of time. I didn’t lose any data. But when I discovered what Windows was going to cost me, plus the emulator Parallels, in order to run Windows, it was the best part of A$300. I also spent a lot of time, trying just about anything to avoid paying for Windows after forking out for a new computer (for the second time in my PhD candidature). All that just to run Toolbox which is a freely downloadable application.

Victorian state government language policy

5 February 201127 March 2007 by Jane Simpson

Last week the Victorian government announced its first step towards a policy on Indigenous languages. So, Noel Pearson was onto something..
I wonder what’s on their wishlist? Dual naming of places (that’ll be slow after the Grampians fiasco)? More ceremonial language used on ceremonial occasions and in official publications? Some Indigenous languages to be taught in schools (that will require a big investment in preparing teaching materials and training teachers, to avoid alienating kids)?

A week of Indigenous Australian languages

5 February 201125 March 2007 by Jane Simpson

It’s been a week for Indigenous Australian languages here in the Sydney area – the annual Australian languages workshop at Pearl Beach brilliantly directed by Joe Blythe, a new film on teaching NSW languages in schools, and finally the launch of Jennifer Biddle’s new book Breasts, Bodies, Canvas: Central Desert Art as Experience (UNSW Press).

New Māori and NZSL curricula

5 February 201122 March 2007 by hilariodesousa

In the last seven days, the New Zealand Ministry of Education Te Tāhuhu o te Mātauranga introduced new national curricula of Māori and NZ Sign Language for mainstream English-medium schools (better late than never).

Noel Pearson on saving Indigenous languages

5 February 201110 March 2007 by Jane Simpson

Check out Noel Pearson’s opinion piece in The Australian 10/3/07. He suggests that the two most important pieces of work in “saving” Indigenous languages so far have been the language documentation work undertaken by linguists (yes!) sponsored by AIATSIS, and the translations of the Bible done mostly by Summer Institute of Linguistics linguists. (And to this let’s add the importance of gospel song writing mentioned by Bulanjdjan and Wamut). He gently makes the point that linguists’ grammars are often inaccessible to speakers. We should listen; we can do better.

Notes from a field methods class (1)

5 February 20118 March 2007 by Jane Simpson

This week was the start of the Field Methods class. There are about ten of us, undergraduates and postgrads, with a range of interests, from about-to-head-off-to-the-field, to thinking-about-maybe-heading-off, to love-hearing-language-sounds, to love-language-and-technology, to I-think-I’ll-change-to-theory. I ‘m hoping that our class can keep up a weekly commentary on what’s been happening. I’m also hoping that together with the local PARADISEC people, Tom Honeyman, Aidan Wilson, Amanda Harris and Vi King Lim, we can create a space on the PARADISEC links web-site to put up final versions of useful information we create, and links to other people’s useful information. And of course, I’m hoping that we get suggestions for improving all of this!