The Oxford Handbook of Endangered Languages (Oxford Handbooks)

The endangered languages crisis is widely acknowledged among scholars who deal with languages and indigenous peoples as one of the most pressing problems facing humanity, posing moral, practical, and scientific issues of enormous proportions. Simply put, no area of the world is immune from language endangerment. The Oxford Handbook of Endangered Languages , in 39 chapters, provides a comprehensive overview of the efforts that are being undertaken to deal with this crisis. A comprehensive reference reflecting the breadth of the field, the Handbook presents in detail both the range of thinking about language endangerment and the variety of responses to it, and broadens understanding of language endangerment, language documentation, and language revitalization, encouraging further research. The Handbook is organized into five parts. Part 1, Endangered Languages , addresses the fundamental issues that are essential to understanding the nature of the endangered languages crisis. Part 2, Language Documentation , provides an overview of the issues and activities of concern to linguists and others in their efforts to record and document endangered languages. Part 3, Language Revitalization , includes approaches, practices, and strategies for revitalizing endangered and sleeping ("dormant") languages. Part 4, Endangered Languages and Biocultural Diversity , extends the discussion of language endangerment beyond its conventional boundaries to consider the interrelationship of language, culture, and environment, and the common forces that now threaten the sustainability of their diversity. Part 5, Looking to the Future , addresses a variety of topics that are certain to be of consequence in future efforts to document and revitalize endangered languages. Cover The Oxford Handbook of Endangered Languages Copyright Contents Foreword Biographical note Introduction: Endangered languages Part I Endangered Languages 1. The status of the world’s endangered languages 2 Assessing degrees of language endangerment 3 Language contact and language endangerment 4 Indigenous language rights—​Miner’s canary or mariner’s tern? Part II Language Documentation 5 The goals of language documentation 6 Documentation, linguistic typology, and formal grammar 7 The design and implementation of documentation projects for spoken languages 8. Endangered sign languages: An introduction 9 Design and implementation of collaborative language documentation projects 10. Tools and technology for language documentation and revitalization 11. Corpus compilation and exploitation in language documentation projects 12 Writing grammars of endangered languages 13. Compiling dictionaries of endangered languages 14 Orthography design and implementation for endangered languages 15. Language archiving 16. Tools from the ethnography of communication for language documentation 17. Language documentation in diaspora communities 18. Ethics in language documentation and revitalization Part III Language Revitalization 19. Approaches to and strategies for language revitalization 20. Comparative analysis in language revitalization practices: Addressing the challenge 21 The linguistics of language revitalization: Problems of acquisition and attrition 22. New media for endangered languages 23. Language recovery paradigms 24 Myaamiaataweenki: Revitalization of a sleeping language 25. Language revitalization in kindergarten: A case study of Truku Seediq language immersion 26 Māori: Revitalization of an endangered language 27. Language revitalization in Africa 28. Planning minority language maintenance: Challenges and limitations Part IV Endangered Languages and Biocultural Diversity 29. Congruence between species and language diversity 30. Sustaining biocultural diversity 31 Traditional and local knowledge systems as language legacies critical for conservation 32 Climate change and its consequences for cultural and language endangerment 33 Interdisciplinary language documentation 34 Why lexical loss and culture death endanger science Part V Looking to the Future 35. Funding the documentation and revitalization of endangered languages 36 Teaching linguists to document endangered languages 37 Training language activists to support endangered languages 38 Designing mobile applications for endangered languages 39 Indigenous language use impacts wellness Afterword Index The endangered languages crisis is widely acknowledged among scholars who deal with languages and indigenous peoples as one of the most pressing problems facing humanity, posing moral, practical, and scientific issues of enormous proportions. Simply put, no area of the world is immune from language endangerment.0The Oxford Handbook of Endangered Languages, in 39 chapters, provides a comprehensive overview of the efforts that are being undertaken to deal with this crisis. A comprehensive reference reflecting the breadth of the field, the Handbook presents in detail both the range of thinking about language endangerment and the variety of responses to it, and broadens understanding of language endangerment, language documentation, and language revitalization, encouraging further0research. 0The Handbook is organized into five parts. Part 1, Endangered Languages, addresses the fundamental issues that are essential to understanding the nature of the endangered languages crisis. Part 2, Language Documentation, provides an overview of the issues and activities of concern to linguists and others in their efforts to record and document endangered languages. Part 3, Language Revitalization, includes approaches, practices, and strategies for revitalizing endangered and sleeping ("dormant") languages. Part 4, Endangered Languages and Biocultural Diversity, extends the discussion of language endangerment beyond its conventional boundaries to consider the interrelationship of language, culture, and environment, and the common forces that now threaten the sustainability of their diversity. Part 5, Looking to the Future, addresses a variety of topics that are certain to be of consequence in future efforts to document and revitalize endangered languages The Oxford Handbook of Endangered Languages, in thirty-nine chapters, provides a comprehensive overview of the efforts that are being undertaken to deal with this crisis. Its purposes are (1) to provide a reasonably comprehensive reference volume, with the scope of the volume as a whole representing the breadth of the field; (2) to highlight both the range of thinking about language endangerment and the variety of responses to it; and (3) to broaden understanding of language endangerment, language documentation, and language revitalization, and, in so doing, to encourage and contribute to fresh thinking and new findings in support of endangered languages "Le manuel d'Oxford sur les langues menacées, en 39 chapitres, est une ressource complète sur les langues menacées. Il élargit la compréhension de la langue en danger, de la documentation linguistique et de la revitalisation linguistique, et, ce faisant, il encourage la recherche et le soutien des langues menacées." The Oxford Handbook of Endangered Languages, in 39 chapters, is a comprehensive resource on endangered languages. It broadens understanding of language endangerment, language documentation, and language revitalization, and in doing so encourages further research and support for endangered languages.