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Multilingualism and language endangerment
Workshop at the DGfS Annual Conference, 27 February - 1 March 2002
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Abstract (CfP)
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The objective of this workshop is to investigate the complex interrelationship between multilingualism and language endangerment, and to relate the findings to ongoing work in the documentation and revitalization of endangered languages (Fishman 1991). Most of the world's societies are multilingual, and research on the effects of multilingualism on the individual shows that it is more likely to be beneficial than harmful. Similar considerations apply to societies, except where languages are imposed on minorities (or where minorities accept dominant languges) for political and economic reasons. But the world's languages are rapidly being depleted, and for endangered languages multilingualism may be a mixed blessing, though more as a symptom than a cause of endangerment. Speakers of endangered languages are almost always multilingual, though in many different ways (Connell & al. 2000): with respect to a supraregional language like Chinese, English, French, Hindi, Russian, Spanish or Portuguese, or to a regional lingua franca or trade language, or to domestic multilingualism engendered by exogamy. The workshop covers the interaction between multilingualism and language endangerment factors, its consequences for areas like language planning policy, the role of indigenous languages, and multilingual primary level language education in different parts of the world. The target group consists of linguists and sociolinguists working on endangered languages, multilingualism and language shift, and applied linguists developing multilingual education programmes and alphabetisation materials. Connell, Bruce & al. (2001). Ega: a preliminary assessment of endangerment. Annual Conference on African Linguistics, Berkeley, March 22-25 2001. Fishman, J.A. (1991). Reversing language shift: Theoretical and empirical foundations of assistance to threatened languages. Philadelphia: Multilingual Matters.
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(To appear here shortly: abstracts and workshop contributions.)
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