LINGUIST List 3.295

Fri 27 Mar 1992

FYI: reviewers, CLS, new list, book rec

Editor for this issue: <>

Directory

1. , book reviewing/Romance
2. Chicago Linguistic Society, CLS 26 volumes are out!
3. , NEW LIST: MENDELE Yiddish Literature and Language
4. , Book recommendation

Solliciting Romance linguists, especially with specialization in French,
interested in reviewing books in thier field for ROMANCE PHILOLOGY. Please
send name, address (e-mail aular mail), and field(s) of expertise to:
send name, address (e-mail and/or regular), and field(s) of expertise to:
 Romance Philology
 French Dept.
 University of California
 Berkeley, CA 94720 or

 suzanneucbgaren.berkeley.edu
 suzanneucbrgane.bitnet
 suzannegarnet.berkeley.edu

The Chicago Linguistic Society is pleased to announced that the CLS 26 volumes
(Volume 1: General Session and Volume 2: Parasession on the Syllable) are now
available. Preordered volumes are being shipped out right now. Those who wish
to order the volumes should send their names, addresses, and phone numbers to
clssapir.uchicago.edu or call (312)702-8529. The volumes will also be av
available at the 28th Regional Meeting, April 23-25.

We are also taking preorders for CLS 27 (with a parasession on negation) and
CLS 28 (with a parasession on the cycle) at this moment, please contact us if
you are interested in these volumes.

Grace P. Chan (for CLS 28)

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For the attention of LINGUISTs: The following book was published recently:

Robins, Robert H. & Uhlenbeck, Eugenius M. (eds.) 1991.
 ENDANGERED LANGUAGES. Oxford & New York: Berg. (Diogenes Library)

This is not an advertisement by the publisher of the book. I just thought
that it deserves the maximum attention of linguists. It contains
information on languages around the world for which documentation is
most urgently needed.
 According to estimates reported by Michael Krauss ("The world's languages
in crisis", LSA symposium, January 1991), between 20% and 50% of the
languages of the world are already moribund, i.e. will become extinct within
the next half century or so. Isn't this a topic that deserves the same
concern as linguistics in the popular press or linguistics in the high
school curriculum? (In fact, isn't it sensational enough to be picked up
by the popular press once linguists begin campaigning for it?)
 The Comite' International Permanent des Linguistes (CIPL)
has already taken some action. "Endangered languages" was chosen as the
general theme of the 15th International Congress of Linguists
(Quebec, 9-14 August 1992), and the CIPL secretary, Eugenius Uhlenbeck,
is apparently trying to get UNESCO support for a documentation program
(the publication of the abovementioned book was already supported by UNESCO).
However, it is unclear whether actions by individuals at the highest
level alone are sufficient.
 Michael Krauss ended his LSA symposium talk asking what will be the
role of the LSA. Have any LSA activities, in addition to the 1991
symposium, been undertaken? What else is being done, and what could be
done? (We probably can do nothing to stop the extinction of languages,
but we can do a lot to document the dying languages.)

Martin Haspelmath, Free University of Berlin

P.S. Here in central Europe, a Committee on Endangered Languages of the
German Society of Linguistics (DGfS) has just been constituted that will
seek to coordinate activities here. The committee would like to get in
touch with anyone who shares our concerns. Please contact
 Christian Lehmann (U Bielefeld, lehmannlili1.uni-bielefeld.de), or
 Nikolaus Himmelmann (U Cologne, am003aix370.rrz.uni-koeln.de), or
 Gunther Senft (MPI Nijmegen, senftmpi.nl),
 or myself (haspelmathphilologie.fu-berlin.de).