Vanishing Voices: The Extinction of the World's Languages

Contents......Page 6
List of Illustrations......Page 8
Preface......Page 10
one: Where Have All the Languages Gone?......Page 14
Why and how are languages dying?......Page 18
Where and when are languages at risk?......Page 20
Why worry about languages dying?......Page 23
What can be done?......Page 36
two: A World of Diversity......Page 39
How many languages are there and where are they spoken?......Page 40
Hotbeds of linguistic diversity......Page 46
Endangerment: the extent of the threat......Page 52
Biolinguistic diversity: some correlations between the linguistic and biological worlds......Page 54
three: Lost Words/Lost Worlds......Page 63
Sudden versus gradual death......Page 64
What happens in gradual death?......Page 66
What is being lost 1: a rose by any other name?......Page 69
What is being lost 2: what\'s mine is mine?......Page 75
What is being lost 3: women, fire, and dangerous things......Page 79
Lost languages, lost knowledge......Page 82
four: The Ecology of Language......Page 91
Babel in paradise: Papua New Guinea......Page 93
Why are there so many languages?......Page 97
The ways languages die......Page 103
What has changed......Page 110
five: The Biological Wave......Page 112
The Paleolithic world system......Page 114
The Neolithic revolution......Page 117
Different trajectories after the Neolithic......Page 124
The Neolithic aftershock......Page 127
The untouched world......Page 137
six: The Economic Wave......Page 139
The rise to dominance......Page 141
Economic takeoff......Page 144
First casualties: the Celtic languages......Page 146
The spread to the developing world......Page 156
Double dangers......Page 160
seven: Why Something Should Be Done......Page 163
Why bother?......Page 166
Making choices......Page 167
Language, development, and sustainability......Page 168
Indigenous knowledge systems......Page 179
Language rights and human rights......Page 185
eight: Sustainable Futures......Page 189
Bottom-up approaches to language maintenance: some case studies......Page 190
Settling for less, but getting more?......Page 199
Who\'s afraid of bilingualism?......Page 203
Living without a heart......Page 206
Planning for survival: languages as natural resources......Page 212
Some top-down strategies......Page 213
References and Further Reading......Page 218
Bibliography......Page 228
A......Page 238
B......Page 239
C......Page 240
D......Page 241
E......Page 242
H......Page 244
I......Page 245
L......Page 246
N......Page 248
P......Page 249
R......Page 250
S......Page 251
T......Page 252
Y......Page 253
Z......Page 254