Blog Post V: Learning Along the Way

For my literature review, I am defining language preservation and revitalization as a movement and looking at both its accomplishments and its shortcomings. An overview of the field is necessary before delving into the relationship between museums and linguistics, so readers will have a better understanding of how and why languages become endangered and what linguists are currently doing to remedy this. In addition, by exploring the past and current works of linguists, I can see where there are gaps and how these gaps can potentially be filled by cultural institutions. For example, I have learned that “recordings of natural conversation, rules of address politeness, turn-taking, and other discourse aspects of endangered languages are few and far between” (1). Given that oral histories are an important archival resource, museums and archives can be great places to store recordings of conversation and culturally important stories/folktales that will assist language revitalization. In addition, linguist Hinton points out that “linguistic documentation that assists revitalization must be user-friendly for the community and oriented toward language education” (2). The idea of being user-friendly and for the community directly aligns with the missions of museums. Cultural institutions are all about accessibility, and data accumulated by linguists must be usable and understandable to people who aren’t linguists in order to make use of them in their communities.

Furthermore, I am learning about what organizations are currently doing in the United States to contribute to the language revitalization effort. As I’ve mentioned in Blog Post IV, there is the National Breath of Life Archival Institute for Indigenous Languages, which provides endangered language communities access to language archives with the goal of recovering and reviving their languages. I previously thought that this was the only program, but it is actually one of many, just sharing the name and general goal. It is modeled after the Breath of Life Archival Institute for Indigenous California Languages, hosted by the Advocates for Indigenous California Language Survival and the University of California, Berkeley. Moving forward, I still need to know what efforts are being done in Ireland and in the United Kingdom as I will be focusing on the Celtic languages for the main case study of my thesis. I’ve found some great potential resources on language policy and revitalization efforts for the Celtic languages which I will focus on after finishing my literature review.

Lastly, one other interesting thing I’ve learned about through my Evolving English Language class and through one of my thesis resources is the debate surrounding the spread of English. Minority languages can become endangered as a majority language, like English, is favored and learned. Many people, like Jay Walker who gave a Ted Talk called “The World’s English Mania,” see the spread of English as a good thing, as it paves the way for what Walker claims as “a future where the world has a common language to solve its common problems.” I’m interested to learn more about the pros and cons of a world common language and how it might affect lesser spoken languages.

Screenshot from the Breath of Life Archival Institute for Indigenous California Languages, highlighting some of the services offered. Hinton's name is also mentioned, as she is an important figure in language revitalization and whose journal articles I am referencing in my literature review.

Notes:

(1) Leanne Hinton, “Language Revitalization,” Annual Review of Applied Linguistics 23, (2003): 46.

(2) Hinton, 54.