Ecological Perspectives on Language Endangerment and Loss

By: Salikoko S. Mufwene

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Synopsis: This book discusses various issues arising from the dominant discourse on language endangerment and loss in linguistics. Are the terms mother tongue, heritage language, and ancestral language interchangeable? Does a child receiving formal education in a mother tongue different from that or those of his/her parents lose a culture that he/she &“should&” otherwise inherit? Is a language separate from the culture in which its speakers evolve and it is being practiced? Thus, is a population shifting to a dominant language necessarily abandoning its traditional culture ipso facto or is it also reshaping it along with that associated with the new language into a new, mixed culture? Are cultures intended to be static? Must speakers of particular languages be wedded to them in the same way they are to their genes? What can we learn about language shift, language vitality, and human adaptiveness from the protracted history of mankind? These and a host of other issues regarding the intertwining of colonization, globalization, language, and culture are discussed in this book, inviting linguists and other interested scholars to be critical participants in the current debate.