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Spoken Here: Travels Among Threatened Languages__

  • 28-02-2004 11:09am
    #1
    luckat
    Closed Accounts Posts: 5,366 ✭✭✭


    Leabhar an-spéisiúil, is dóigh liom. Deireann Amazon.co.uk:

    Besieged languages, small shoulders, 17 February, 2004



    Reviewer: the_scriptorium from Falmouth
    Mark Abley traverses the globe in search of speakers of threatened languages, from Aboriginal homelands in Australia to the Yuchi in Oklahoma, from the Isle of Manx to the cradle of Provencal, as well as burying his nose in library stacks, unearthing priceless mouthfuls of Boro, a besieged language spoken in the borderlands of India. Repeatedly, the dwindling language suffers encroachment from another perceived as "superior" along with concomitant loss of pride in the ancestral tongue.

    Abley tackles issues and implications associated with impending extinction. What is at stake? Freighted as language is with a culture's world view - perhaps conditioned from prehistory as in the case of the Aboriginal languages, loss of language exacerbates cultural impoverishment much as bio-diversity suffers from the loss of species.

    Loss of language is loss of identity: when a language disappears, so too disappears a strand of history and a people's sense of place. While it is indeed important to record a dying language so as to maintain a record of it, this should never be construed as an adequate replacement, rather only a place marker, much like a headstone - only a speaker of that language knows the idiom, the world view, associated with that language.

    Which leads to the state of many of these threatened languages: often spoken by only a dwindling elderly population, their only hope is in the young, a heavy burden for small shoulders. Only in a few cases does there seem to be hope. This is a must-read for anyone with interest in language. Well done, Mark Abley.


Comments

  • #2
    simu
    Closed Accounts Posts: 10,730 ✭✭✭✭simu


    Sea, tá an-shuim agam san ábhar seo cé go gcuireann sé gruaim orm leis - ach is dóigh liom go bhfuil sé tábhachtach do mhuintir na hÉireann a thuiscint go gcaithfear an Ghaeilge a choiméad beo agus nach leor é na focail agus na nathanna cainte go léir a bheith i bhfoclóirí!

    An bhfuil tú chun é a cheannach?


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