emunix.emich.edu>
Editor for this issue: Ljuba Veselinova <lveselinemunix.emich.edu>
chibcha.demon.co.uk>The Foundation for Endangered Languages, which began its life at a meeting in London in January 1995, but was first publicised at the University of Bristol Seminar on the Conservation of Endangered Languages in April 1995, has now reached the stage of asking for subscriptions. These will most immediately support the production and distribution of the Newsletter, the fees for formal incorporation of the Foundation as a charitable "Company Limited by Guarantee" in the UK. We have, in fact, already received a request for a modest level of support from the Livonian community (in Latvia, on the Baltic coast) for support of a lexicographical project. This would neatly combine community support with documentation. There have in fact now been 6 meetings of the Foundation, the latest one just before the LAGB meeting at the University of Sussex, in England, on 11 April. The current Committee members are: Nicholas Ostler President Andrew Woodfield Secretary Daniel Nettle Treasurer Stephen May Publicity Christopher Moseley Group Liaison The Foundation is affiliated to the Philosophy Department at Bristol University. We should have liked to send this issue of Iatiku to anyone who wishes for a copy, but since it is quite bulky (36 pages) and international postage is significant, I can only do so to those who are willing to subscribe to the Foundation for the year beginning on 1 May 1996. To give you some idea of what you would be subscribing to, I enclose in this message: I. The Foundation's Manifesto, agreed at Meetings 4 and 5 II. The Editorial of the 2nd issue of Iatiku, FEL's Newsletter III. Details of How to Subscribe ******************************************************************************* I. The Foundation's Manifesto 1. Preamble 1.1. The Present Situation At this point in human history, most human languages are spoken by exceedingly few people. And that majority, the majority of languages, is about to vanish. The most authoritative source on the languages of the world (Ethnologue, Grimes 1992) lists just over 6,500 living languages. Population figures are available for just over 6,000 of them (or 92%). Of these 6,000, it may be noted that: * 52% are spoken by fewer than 10,000 people; * 28% by fewer than 1,000; and * 83% are restricted to single countries, and so are particularly exposed to the policies of a single government. At the other end of the scale, 10 major languages, each spoken by over 109 million people, are the mother tongues of almost half (49%) of the world's population. More important than this snapshot of proportions and populations is the outlook for survival of the languages we have. Hard comparable data here are scarce or absent, often because of the sheer variety of the human condition: a small community, isolated or bilingual, may continue for centuries to speak a unique language, while in another place a populous language may for social or political reasons die out in little more than a generation. Another reason is that the period in which records have been kept is too short to document a trend: e.g. the Ethnologue has been issued only since 1951. However, it is difficult to imagine many communities sustaining serious daily use of a language for even a generation with fewer than 100 speakers: yet at least 10% of the world's living languages are now in this position. Some of the forces which make for language loss are clear: the impacts of urbanization, Westernization and global communications grow daily, all serving to diminish the self-sufficiency and self-confidence of small and traditional communities. Discriminatory policies, and population movements also take their toll of languages. In our era, the preponderance of tiny language communities means that the majority of the world's languages are vulnerable not just to decline but to extinction. 1.2. The Likely Prospect There is agreement among linguists who have considered the situation that over half of the world's languages are moribund, i.e. not effectively being passed on to the next generation. We and our children, then, are living at the point in human history where, within perhaps two generations, most languages in the world will die out. This mass extinction of languages may not appear immediately life-threatening. Some will feel that a reduction in numbers of languages will ease communication, and perhaps help build nations, even global solidarity. But it has been well pointed out that the success of humanity in colonizing the planet has been due to our ability to develop cultures suited for survival in a variety of environments. These cultures have everywhere been transmitted by languages, in oral traditions and latterly in written literatures. So when language transmission itself breaks down, especially before the advent of literacy in a culture, there is always a large loss of inherited knowledge. Valued or not, that knowledge is lost, and humanity is the poorer. Along with it may go a large part of the pride and self-identity of the community of former speakers. And there is another kind of loss, of a different type of knowledge. As each language dies, science, in linguistics, anthropology, prehistory and psychology, loses one more precious source of data, one more of the diverse and unique ways that the human mind can express itself through a language's structure and vocabulary. We cannot now assess the full effect of the massive simplification of the world's linguistic diversity now occurring. But language loss, when it occurs, is sheer loss, irreversible and not in itself creative. Speakers of an endangered language may well resist the extinction of their traditions, and of their linguistic identity. They have every right to do so. And we, as scientists, or concerned human beings, will applaud them in trying to preserve part of the diversity which is one of our greatest strengths and treasures. 1.3. The Need for an Organization We cannot stem the global forces which are at the root of language decline and loss. But we can work to lessen the ignorance which sees language loss as inevitable when it is not, and does not properly value all that will go when a language itself vanishes. We can work to see technological developments, such as computing and telecommunications, used to support small communities and their traditions rather than to supplant them. And we can work to lessen the damage: * by recording as much as possible of the languages of communities which seem to be in terminal decline; * by emphasizing particular benefits of the diversity still remaining; and * by promoting literacy and language maintenance programmes, to increase the strength and morale of the users of languages in danger. In order to further these aims, there is a need for an autonomous international organization which is not constrained or influenced by matters of race, politics, gender or religion. This organization will recognise in language issues the principles of self-determination, and group and individual rights. It will pay due regard to economic, social, cultural, community and humanitarian considerations. Although it may work with any international, regional or local Authority, it will retain its independence throughout. Membership will be open to those in all walks of life. 2. Aims and Objectives The Foundation for Endangered Languages exists to support, enable and assist the documentation, protection and promotion of endangered languages. In order to do this, it aims:- (i) To raise awareness of endangered languages, both inside and outside the communities where they are spoken, through all channels and media; (ii) To support the use of endangered languages in all contexts: at home, in education, in the media, and in social, cultural and economic life; (iii) To monitor linguistic policies and practices, and to seek to influence the appropriate authorities where necessary; (iv) To support the documentation of endangered languages, by offering financial assistance, training, or facilities for the publication of results; (v) To collect together and make available information of use in the preservation of endangered languages; (vi) To disseminate information on all of the above activities as widely as possible. ******************************************************************************* II. Editorial of the second issue of Iatiku, the Foundation's Newsletter (Iatiku is the mother goddess of the Acoma tribe of New Mexico, who caused people to speak different languages so that it would not be so easy for them to quarrel. - Sam Gill & Irene Sullivan, Dictionary of Native American Mythology, New York: OUP 1992: p. 5. Contra: Genesis XI, 1-9.) This is the second issue of Iatiku, the first public expression of the Foundation for Endangered Languages. The Foundation is conceived as a free and independent association of those who are concerned at the loss of more and more of the world's languages... Since the first issue of Iatiku appeared, on the 1st of May last year, the Foundation has elected its first officers, identified the range of languages with which it will first look to set up links, and agreed its Manifesto. The Foundation will be constituted formally in the UK as a company limited by guarantee. This will enable us to act as a recognized charity. There is a draft Memorandum and Articles of Association available for members to inspect, and these will be the Foundation's constitution. We aim to ally concerned linguists with the growing interest and compassion of the public at large, to give the cause of endangered languages as sharp a profile among monolinguals in the first world as among those whose own linguistic heritage is actually threatened. Based initially in a corner of Europe, south-west England, where there is no surviving competition to the global weed of English (like other weeds, not without its charms), it is not involved directly in particular linguistic battles, but it is well placed for access to the world's Anglo-Saxon media. We are not an outgrowth of any one language's, or group of languages', struggle for recognition. At the same time, the presence of Celtic languages, in Wales and by conscious revival in Cornwall, is close enough for us to hear the din of real combat, and to witness the nurturing of real linguistic growth. We have access to some of the best linguistic expertise in our part of Europe, and through global media to members all over the world. Yet we are an organization not just of linguists, but of concerned and knowledgeable citizens of the world. A major aim is to provide funds for recording lesser known members of world's stock of languages. But we also have a mission is to explain and interpret to our neighbours what the pattern of those languages is like and how that pattern is changing, not always for the better. Through this we can hope to do something to influence that change, as well as to increase scholarly knowledge. This Issue of Iatiku This is the second issue of our newsletter, which is intended as a quarterly publication. Conditions are still exceptional, however, and with this delivery it only just avoids being an annual one! With our organization still to be formally established, and the newsletter's circulation still very restricted, we have not yet attempted to secure articles written specifically for Iatiku. Even so, there is no lack of material that warrants distribution. Besides the accounts of our own meetings, and the re-echoes, as far as we have been able to trace them of our Seminar on the Conservation of Endangered Languages held last April), I have included a variety of pieces that have appeared on the Internet in the course of the last year. The reach of the Net is, as yet, nothing like universal, even among the concerned linguists who we see as the first, core members of our Foundation. Even for those with access to the Net, it is difficult to keep track of all the new developments, so as to find the information when one has the opportunity to use it. Here you have a repository of new developments world wide in Endangered Languages since 1 May 1995. We pass on notes of appeals with relevance to the survival of languages, which give readers a chance to do something immediate and concrete for the cause. These vary: in this issue, one concerns action directly relevant to a tiny language community, a second is a request for funds for a minority language publishing venture, and a third is an explicitly political call. Among descriptions of recent meetings, we offer November's Symposium in Tokyo which served as the inaugural meeting of the International Clearing House for Endangered Languages, which has been set up as part of the UNESCO initiative and manages the Red Book. This section is drawn from the Clearing House's own Newsletter. Besides the overview of the symposium itself, it contains much useful comment and suggestion from Profs Shigeru Tsuchida (of Tokyo) and Akira Yamamoto (of Kansas). In particular, Yamamoto lists ten talking points, issues which could usefully set the focus for future conferences. We propagate the latest details known to us on new activities around the world which increase knowledge of, or concern for endangered languages: here we bring you up to date on Terralingua (Partnerships for Linguistic and Biological Diversity), which is being organized by David Hermon from a base in Hancock, Michigan, USA; and the recent Language Documentation Urgency List, set up by Dietmar Zaefferer at the University of Munich, which is now beginning to collect language descriptions. The next two sections are a miscellany, first of fragments of discussions of issues (and a poem!) related to endangered languages, and then of a few sources, both in the electronic world and the real one, where useful information may be sought. Discussions range widely:- how should a linguist react when resources seem to go to languages with little hope of recovery? what use is literacy to peoples whose languages may only ever have flourished with out it? what consistency can or should there be in what linguists pay their informants? The round-up of sources continues with a list of forthcoming conferences (interpreted widely enough to include a film festival), and recent publications. In future issues I shall be including readers' letters, and also literary or discussion pieces which will start to make Iatiku a real forum for Endangered Languages. As the Foundation's activities begin to make themselves felt, they will provide a natural focus for Iatiku articles, but the Newsletter should remain more general than the Foundation, with a place for topical content, wherever the diversity of human language, and efforts to protect it, may roam. This will be the last issue of Iatiku that is issued free. It contains, as a final page, a form to request membership of our Foundation: you will be a "Friend" of Endangered Languages until we are fully incorporated later this year. Later issues of Iatiku will go to subscribing members only. I hope you will want to join our enterprise in taking action on behalf of the world's endangered languages. And if you do, please write in with your own suggestions and comments on this issue, as well as contributions for the next one - due out in July! ******************************************************************************* If you wish to support the Foundation for Endangered Languages, please fill out the order form below, and send it with your subscription to the Foundation's Treasurer: Daniel Nettle, FEL, Anthropology, University College London Gower Street, London WC1E 6BT, England Those who find difficulty (technical or financial) in sending subscriptions in one of the three ways suggested should contact the President (Nicholas Ostler, address as below) in the hope that an accommodation can be reached. ******************************************************************************* Please enrol me as a Friend of Endangered Languages. I enclose my subscription fee, as indicated below, for the year beginning 1 May 1996. With my receipt I I expect the latest issue of Iatiku (no. 2), and thereafter to receive the quarterly newsletter Iatiku, together with full details of the Foundation's incorporation, meetings and other activities in that year. Subscription fees in pounds sterling or US dollars: [] Individual member (19 pounds or 30 dollars) Regular. [] Individual member (9 pounds or 14 dollars) Concessionary: please enclose proof of unwaged status. [] Corporate member (59 pounds or 95 dollars) Voluntary bodies (incl. university dept) [] Corporate member (99 pounds or 155 dollars) Official bodies: (incl. university) [] Corporate member (199 pounds or 310 dollars) Commercial companies. * * * [] I enclose a cheque (in pounds sterling) payable to "Friends of Endangered Languages". [] I enclose a check (in US dollars) payable to Nicholas Ostler, and annotated "Subs. to FEL: year from 1 May 1996" [] I enclose proof of having sent an equivalent sum in my own currency to the society's account, "Friends of Endangered Languages", Account no: 50073456, The Cooperative Bank (Sort code: 08-90-02), 16 St. Stephen's Street, Bristol BS1 1JR, England. Signed: Date: Name: Tel. (daytime): Address: Fax: e-mail: ******************************************************************************* Thank you for your support. Nicholas Ostler President, Foundation for Endangered Languages Address for correspondence: Batheaston Villa, 172 Bailbrook Lane Bath BA1 7AA England tel +44-1225-85-2865 fax +44-1225-85-9258 e-mail nostlerMail to author|Respond to list|Read more issues|LINGUIST home page|Top of issue