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97-486: ǃOrakobab or Khoemana , also known as Korana , ǃOra , or Griqua , is a moribund Khoe language of South Africa. "Khoemana" (from khoe 'person' + mana 'language') is more commonly known as either Korana / k ɒ ˈ r ɑː n ə / korr- AH -nə (also ǃOrakobab, ǃOra, Kora, Koraqua) or Griqua (also Gri [xri] , Xri, Xiri, Xirikwa). The name 'Korana' reflects the endonym ǃOra IPA: [ǃoɾa] or ǃGora IPA: [gǃoɾa] , referring to

194-460: A caron ), mid (no accent), and falling (notated with a circumflex ). Reports as to the number of Khoemana speakers are contradictory, but it is clear that it is nearly extinct. It was thought to be extinct until the discovery of four elderly speakers around Bloemfontein and Kimberley. A 2009 report by Don Killian of the University of Helsinki estimated that there were less than 30 speakers at

291-582: A creole continuum , ranging from an acrolect (a version of the creole that is very similar to the prestige language), to mesolects (decreasingly similar versions), to the basilect (the most "conservative" creole). An example of decreolization described by Hock and Joseph is African American Vernacular English (AAVE), in which older, more conservative versions preserve features such as the completive marker done while newer, less conservative versions do not. Some instances of contact between languages with different prestige levels have resulted in diglossia,

388-427: A less prestigious dialect than that which they actually spoke. According to this interpretation then, "women's use of prestige features simply conforms to the ordinary sociolinguistic order, while men deviate from what is expected." Elizabeth Gordon, in her study of New Zealand, suggested instead that women used higher prestige forms because of the association of sexual immorality with lower-class women . Whatever

485-500: A change in the local variety. This continuum means that despite the fact that standard German and standard Dutch are not mutually intelligible, the speech of people living near the border between Germany and the Netherlands will more closely resemble that of their neighbors across the border than the standard languages of their respective home countries. Even so, speakers near the border would describe themselves as speaking

582-485: A community with special collective rights . Language can also be considered as scientific knowledge in topics such as medicine, philosophy, botany, and more. It reflects a community's practices when dealing with the environment and each other. When a language is lost, this knowledge is often lost as well. In contrast, language revitalization is correlated with better health outcomes in indigenous communities. During language loss—sometimes referred to as obsolescence in

679-591: A distinct language, while "'dialect' is [...] a term that suggests lower-class or rural speech". A canonical example of this is the Scandinavian languages , including Danish , Swedish , and Norwegian , where language differences "constitute barriers to but do not wholly block communication", but are considered distinct languages because they are spoken in different countries . While some differences between dialects are regional in nature, there are also social causes for differences in dialects. Very often,

776-470: A dominant position in a country. Speakers of endangered languages may themselves come to associate their language with negative values such as poverty, illiteracy and social stigma, causing them to wish to adopt the dominant language that is associated with social and economical progress and modernity . Immigrants moving into an area may lead to the endangerment of the autochthonous language. Dialects and accents have seen similar levels of endangerment during

873-433: A fraction of the world's linguistic diversity, therefore their picture of what human language is—and can be—will be limited. Some linguists consider linguistic diversity to be analogous to biological diversity, and compare language endangerment to wildlife endangerment . Linguists, members of endangered language communities, governments, nongovernmental organizations, and international organizations such as UNESCO and

970-569: A heterosexual masculinity," and included examples of a Korean-American student using AAVE to gain recognition/acceptance in the African American speech community. This underscores that the relative status of language varies according to audience. Likewise, in studies of the speech patterns in British English , Peter Trudgill observed that more working-class women spoke the standard dialect than men. Farida Abu-Haidar performed

1067-430: A language variety is considered a language or a dialect. In discussing definitions of language, Dell Hymes wrote that "sometimes two communities are said to have the same, or different, languages on the grounds of mutual intelligibility , or lack thereof", but alone, this definition is often insufficient. Different language varieties in an area exist along a dialect continuum , and moving geographically often means

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1164-655: A larger sign language or dispersal of the deaf community) can lead to the endangerment and loss of their traditional sign language. Methods are being developed to assess the vitality of sign languages. While there is no definite threshold for identifying a language as endangered, UNESCO 's 2003 document entitled Language vitality and endangerment outlines nine factors for determining language vitality: Many languages, for example some in Indonesia , have tens of thousands of speakers but are endangered because children are no longer learning them, and speakers are shifting to using

1261-453: A phenomenon in which a community uses a high prestige language or dialect in certain situations, usually for newspapers , in literature , on university campuses , for religious ceremonies, and on television and the radio , but uses a low prestige language or dialect for other situations, often in conversation in the home or in letters , comic strips , and in popular culture . Linguist Charles A. Ferguson 's 1959 article "Diglossia" listed

1358-487: A professor of linguistics at North Carolina State University , notes that he "can't think of any situations in the United States where low-prestige groups have high-prestige language systems". Wolfram further emphasizes this in his PBS documentary "Do You Speak American?", and explains how there is a very clear hierarchy in which "modern American English" is at the top, and African American Vernacular English (AAVE)

1455-618: A reflection of the prestige of its speakers. This phenomenon is not limited to English-speaking populations. In Western Europe , multiple languages were considered to be of high prestige at some time or another, including " Italian as the Mediterranean lingua franca and as the language of the Renaissance ; and the 17th-18th century French of the court culture ". Similarly, when British philologist William Jones published: The Sanskrit language, whatever be its antiquity,

1552-439: A result of prestige influences the language used by different individuals, depending on which groups they do belong or want to belong. Sociolinguistic prestige is especially visible in situations where two or more distinct languages are used, and in diverse , socially stratified urban areas, in which there are likely to be speakers of different languages and/or dialects interacting often. The result of language contact depends on

1649-418: A signal of group identity. One example is a 1998 study on the use of word-final -ing versus -in among college fraternity men in the United States. The fraternity men used "-in" rather than "-ing," from which the author concluded that the men used -in to demonstrate what they saw as working-class behavioral traits, such as 'hard-working' and 'casual,' thus creating a specific identity for themselves. In

1746-537: A significant impact on the heritage and culture of Khoemana speakers. Robust Khoemana (before more recent language attrition ) is principally recorded in an 1879 notebook by Lucy Lloyd , which contains five short stories; some additional work was done in Ponelis (1975). As of 2009, the EuroBABEL project is searching for remaining speakers. The people and their language first began to attract scholarly attention in

1843-655: A similar study in Baghdad of prestige in the Arabic language, after which she concluded that in Baghdadi Arabic, women are more conscious of prestige than are men. Other areas in which this has been observed include New Zealand and Guangdong in China . As explanation, Trudgill suggests that for men, there is covert prestige associated with speaking the working-class dialect. In fact, he observed men claiming to speak

1940-419: A specific—and non-prestigious—group of people, or to signal to other speakers their identification with that group. The idea of covert prestige was first introduced by William Labov, who noticed that even speakers who used non-standard dialects often believed that their own dialect was "bad" or "inferior". Labov realized that there must be some underlying reason for their use of the dialect, which he identified as

2037-519: A study by Elaine Chun, it was noted that even though the use of African-American Vernacular English (AAVE) is not viewed as the standard in many American schools, and thus is often corrected by teachers, there are some instances where non-African Americans use AAVE to construct their identity in a particular way and enjoy covert prestige in the African American speech community. The study pointed out that "mainstream uses of AAVE 'slang' are especially prevalent in social circles that desire to create and project

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2134-518: A variety of their respective standard languages, and the evolution of these dialects tends to mirror that of the standard languages as well. That they are classified as such reflects the fact that "language differences are not only marks of differential group membership, but also powerful triggers of group attitudes". Such fuzziness has resulted in the aphorism " A language is a dialect with an army and navy ." That is, speakers of some language variety with political and social power are viewed as having

2231-794: Is Sanskrit , an ancient prestige language that has incorporated the vernacular pronunciations of [ tʃ ] and [b] for word-initial y- and v- . The prestige language may also change under the influence of specific regional dialects in a process known as regionalization . For example, in medieval times, Ecclesiastical Latin developed different forms in countries such as Italy, France, Portugal, Spain, Catalonia, as well as other Roman Catholic nations, notably in pronunciation – see Latin regional pronunciation . Some of these differences were minor, such as c before i and e being pronounced [tʃ] in Italy but [s] in France, but after English underwent

2328-440: Is a " folk linguistic " belief that the most prestigious dialect is the single standard dialect of English that all people should speak. Linguist Rosina Lippi-Green believes that this belief in a standard language defends and rationalizes the preservation of the social order , since it equates "nonstandard" or "substandard" language with "nonstandard or substandard human beings." Linguists believe that no variety of language

2425-723: Is a similar reason, though not quite so forcible, for supposing that both the Gothic and the Celtic, though blended with a very different idiom, had the same origin with the Sanskrit. It started a moment in time in which Sanskrit was considered the oldest language in the world, followed by other languages increasing their prestige by claiming to be as close to a presumed Proto-Indo-European language or linked to other Proto-Indo-European mythology , both in Europe and South Asia. Walt Wolfram ,

2522-455: Is also sometimes referred to as language revival or reversing language shift . For case studies of this process, see Anderson (2014). Applied linguistics and education are helpful in revitalizing endangered languages. Vocabulary and courses are available online for a number of endangered languages. Language maintenance refers to the support given to languages that need for their survival to be protected from outsiders who can ultimately affect

2619-442: Is at the bottom, because AAVE is seldom considered "standard" English in academic settings. The education system is one of the primary agents in emphasizing a "standard" way of speaking. For example, Wolfram's documentary also shows how speakers of AAVE are often corrected by teachers, since it has linguistic features that are different from what has been deemed the "standard." Criticism of AAVE in schools by teachers not only insults

2716-500: Is considered prestigious in one context will not carry the same status in another. The relative status of language varies according to audience, situation and other contextual elements such as geographic location. Covert prestige refers to relatively high value placed on a non-standard form of language. Different languages and dialects are accorded prestige based upon factors, including "rich literary heritage, high degree of language modernization, considerable international standing, or

2813-468: Is for the two languages to have an unequal power relationship, as is the case of many colonial language contact situations. Languages that have a higher status in relation to a certain group often manifest themselves in word borrowing . One example is in English, which features many French words, as a result of the historical prestige of French. Another potential result of such contact relationships includes

2910-464: Is inherently better than any other, for every language serves its purpose of allowing its users to communicate. This is because every variety of a language is systematic and rule governed. These rules do not contain a hierarchy, thus certain varieties—linguistically—are not placed above another. The terms and conditions of prestige assigned to a language variety are subject to change depending on speaker, situation and context. A dialect or variety which

3007-559: Is of a wonderful structure; more perfect than the Greek, more copious than the Latin, and more exquisitely refined than either, yet bearing to both of them a stronger affinity, both in the roots of verbs and in the forms of grammar, than could possibly have been produced by accident; so strong indeed, that no philologer could examine them all three, without believing them to have sprung from some common source, which, perhaps, no longer exists: there

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3104-444: Is typically largely based on the prestige language; as noted above, linguists have observed that the low-prestige language usually provides the phonology while the high-prestige language provides the lexicon and grammatical structure. Over time, continued contact between the creole and the prestige language may result in decreolization , in which the creole begins to more closely resemble the prestige language. Decreolization thus creates

3201-400: Is when two languages have been exposed for a long period of time and they begin to have more properties in common. Language shift is when a speaker shifts from speaking a lower prestige dialect to a higher prestige dialect. Language death can happen in many ways, one of which is when speakers of a language die off, and there are no new generations learning to speak this language. The intensity of

3298-500: The Cambridge Handbook of Endangered Languages , there are four main types of causes of language endangerment: Causes that put the populations that speak the languages in physical danger, such as: Causes that prevent or discourage speakers from using a language, such as: Often multiple of these causes act at the same time. Poverty, disease and disasters often affect minority groups disproportionately, for example causing

3395-638: The Griqua people . There exist (or existed) several dialects of Khoemana, but the details are unknown. Khoemana is closely related to Khoekhoe , and the sound systems are broadly similar. The strongly aspirated Khoekhoe affricates are simply aspirated plosives [tʰ, kʰ] in Khoemana. However, Khoemana has an ejective velar affricate, /kxʼʔ/ , which is not found in Khoekhoe, and a corresponding series of clicks , /ǀ͡xʼ ǁ͡xʼ ǃ͡xʼ ǂ͡xʼ/ . Beach (1938) reported that

3492-728: The Northwest Pacific Plateau . Other hotspots are Oklahoma and the Southern Cone of South America. Almost all of the study of language endangerment has been with spoken languages. A UNESCO study of endangered languages does not mention sign languages. However, some sign languages are also endangered, such as Alipur Village Sign Language (AVSL) of India, Adamorobe Sign Language of Ghana, Ban Khor Sign Language of Thailand, and Plains Indian Sign Language . Many sign languages are used by small communities; small changes in their environment (such as contact with

3589-611: The national language (e.g. Indonesian ) in place of local languages. In contrast, a language with only 500 speakers might be considered very much alive if it is the primary language of a community, and is the first (or only) spoken language of all children in that community. Asserting that "Language diversity is essential to the human heritage", UNESCO's Ad Hoc Expert Group on Endangered Languages offers this definition of an endangered language: "... when its speakers cease to use it, use it in an increasingly reduced number of communicative domains, and cease to pass it on from one generation to

3686-459: The standard form of the language, though there are exceptions, particularly in situations of covert prestige (where a non-standard dialect is highly valued). In addition to dialects and languages, prestige is also applied to smaller linguistic features, such as the pronunciation or usage of words or grammatical constructs , which may not be distinctive enough to constitute a separate dialect. The concept of prestige provides one explanation for

3783-417: The ǃOra people . Sometimes ǃOra is also known as Cape Khoe or Cape Hottentot, though the latter has become considered derogatory. The various names are often treated as different languages (called South Khoekhoe when taken together), but they do not correspond to any actual dialect distinctions, and speakers may use "Korana" and "Griqua" interchangeably. Both names are also used more broadly, for example for

3880-475: The "public prestige dialect of the elite in a stratified community differs from the dialect(s) of the non-elite strata ( working class and other)". In fact, in an article which in part tried to motivate the study of sociolinguistics , Raven McDavid wrote that "the importance of language as a mirror of culture can be demonstrated by dialect differences in American English". Thus the relation between

3977-487: The 1660s, coinciding with Dutch colonial efforts in the Cape of Good Hope and the resulting armed conflicts. At the time, Khoemana was widely spoken throughout the coastal regions of South Africa. After years of attrition during the colonial era to the 1930s, and under apartheid from 1948 to 1994, the language has all but vanished. Currently, speakers of Khoemana are not only scarce but scattered, due to forced migrations during

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4074-472: The 21st century due to similar reasons. Language endangerment affects both the languages themselves and the people that speak them. This also affects the essence of a culture. As communities lose their language, they often lose parts of their cultural traditions that are tied to that language. Examples include songs, myths, poetry, local remedies, ecological and geological knowledge, as well as language behaviors that are not easily translated. Furthermore,

4171-457: The AAVE speaker from academic, social, and economic success. Non-standard dialects are usually considered low-prestige, but in some situations dialects "stigmatized by the education system still enjoy a covert prestige among working-class men for the very reason that they are considered incorrect". These situations occur when the speaker wants to gain recognition, acceptance, or solidarity with

4268-678: The European Union are actively working to save and stabilize endangered languages. Once a language is determined to be endangered, there are three steps that can be taken in order to stabilize or rescue the language. The first is language documentation, the second is language revitalization and the third is language maintenance. Language documentation is the documentation in writing and audio-visual recording of grammar , vocabulary, and oral traditions (e.g. stories, songs, religious texts) of endangered languages. It entails producing descriptive grammars, collections of texts and dictionaries of

4365-545: The Khoekhoe of the time had a velar lateral ejective affricate , [k͡ʟ̝̊ʼ] , a common realisation or allophone of /kxʼ/ in languages with clicks, and it might be expected that this is true for Khoemana as well. In addition, about half of all lexical words in Khoemana began with a click, compared to a quarter in Khoekhoe. In Korana, [oe] and [oa] can be pronounced as [we] and [wa]. There are four tones in Khoemana: high (notated with an acute accent ), rising (notated with

4462-457: The U.S. as experts aiming to share their knowledge and expand their skills". Prestige language In sociolinguistics , prestige is the level of regard normally accorded a specific language or dialect within a speech community , relative to other languages or dialects. Prestige varieties are language or dialect families which are generally considered by a society to be the most "correct" or otherwise superior. In many cases, they are

4559-437: The apartheid era. This has rendered the language particularly vulnerable. Endangered language Language shift most commonly occurs when speakers switch to a language associated with social or economic power or one spoken more widely, leading to the gradual decline and eventual death of the endangered language. The process of language shift is often influenced by factors such as globalisation, economic authorities, and

4656-464: The cause, women across many cultures seem more likely than men to modify their speech towards the prestige dialect. Though women use prestige dialects more than men, the same gender preference for prestige languages does not seem to exist. A study of diglossic societies by John Angle and Sharlene Hesse-Biber showed that the poorer men were more likely to speak the prestige language than were poorer women, even though women were more particularly "drawn to

4753-480: The cities or to other countries, thus dispersing the speakers. Cultural dominance occurs when literature and higher education is only accessible in the majority language. Political dominance occurs when education and political activity is carried out exclusively in a majority language. Historically, in colonies, and elsewhere where speakers of different languages have come into contact, some languages have been considered superior to others: often one language has attained

4850-443: The classroom. Many films and TV shows (especially children's TV shows) use different language varieties for different characters, which constructs their identity in particular ways. For example, the protagonists of Disney animated films tend to speak Standard American English , while minor characters or antagonists are more likely to speak with other accents. This is true even when characters would not logically speak English, as in

4947-408: The concepts of overt and covert prestige. Overt prestige is related to standard and "formal" language features, and expresses power and status; covert prestige is related more to vernacular and often patois , and expresses solidarity, community and group identity more than authority. Prestige varieties are those that are regarded mostly highly within a society. As such, the standard language,

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5044-401: The contact between the two languages and their relative prestige levels influence the degree to which a language experiences lexical borrowing and changes to the morphology , phonology, syntax , and overall structure of the language. When two languages with an asymmetrical power relationship come into contact, such as through colonization or in a refugee situation, the creole that results

5141-575: The contributions of linguists globally. Ethnologue's 2005 count of languages in its database, excluding duplicates in different countries, was 6,912, of which 32.8% (2,269) were in Asia, and 30.3% (2,092) in Africa. This contemporary tally must be regarded as a variable number within a range. Areas with a particularly large number of languages that are nearing extinction include: Eastern Siberia , Central Siberia , Northern Australia , Central America , and

5238-461: The creation of a pidgin or eventually creole through nativization . In the case of pidgins and creoles, it is usually noted that the low prestige language provides the phonology while the high prestige language provides the lexicon and grammatical structure . In addition to forming a new language, known as a creole, language contact can result in changes, such as language convergence , language shift or language death . Language convergence

5335-461: The cycles of language death and emergence of new languages through creolization as a continuous ongoing process. A majority of linguists do consider that language loss is an ethical problem, as they consider that most communities would prefer to maintain their languages if given a real choice. They also consider it a scientific problem, because language loss on the scale currently taking place will mean that future linguists will only have access to

5432-408: The dispersal of speaker populations and decreased survival rates for those who stay behind. Among the causes of language endangerment cultural, political and economic marginalization accounts for most of the world's language endangerment. Scholars distinguish between several types of marginalization: Economic dominance negatively affects minority languages when poverty leads people to migrate towards

5529-517: The earliest is GIDS (Graded Intergenerational Disruption Scale) proposed by Joshua Fishman in 1991. In 2011 an entire issue of Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development was devoted to the study of ethnolinguistic vitality, Vol. 32.2, 2011, with several authors presenting their own tools for measuring language vitality. A number of other published works on measuring language vitality have been published, prepared by authors with varying situations and applications in mind. According to

5626-401: The employees at Saks pronounced r most often, Macy's employees pronounced r less often, and at S. Klein, seventy-nine percent of the respondents said no r at all. Another trend Labov noticed was that at all three of the stores, but Macy's in particular, when prompted to say "fourth floor" a second time, employees were much more likely to pronounce the r . Labov attributed his findings to

5723-482: The film Aladdin , where the title character Aladdin , his love interest Jasmine , and Jasmine's father have American accents, but several other characters do not. Associating the American accent with sympathetic or prestigious characters in children's TV shows/movies can have negative implications, contributing to the formation of stereotypes and biases. One of the primary examples of the debate of prestige within

5820-816: The following examples of diglossic societies: in the Middle East and North Africa, Standard Arabic and vernacular Arabics ; in Greece, Katharevousa and Dhimotiki ; in Switzerland, Swiss Standard German and Swiss German ; and in Haiti, Standard French and Haitian Creole . In most African countries, a European language serves as the official, prestige language (Standard French, English, Portuguese ), while local languages ( Wolof , Bambara , Yoruba ) or creoles ( Ivorian French , Nigerian English ) serve as everyday languages of communication. In diglossic societies,

5917-573: The form promoted by authorities—usually governmental or from those in power—and considered "correct" or otherwise superior, is often the prestige variety. However, there are many exceptions to this rule, such as Arabic , in which Egyptian Arabic is widely used in mass media aimed at international audiences, while Literary Arabic (also known as Standard Arabic) is a more prestigious form. Prestige varieties do not exhibit features, grammatically speaking, which prove them superior in terms of logic, efficacy or aesthetics. With certain exceptions, they are

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6014-407: The high prestige dialect. The prestige given to r was also evident in the hypercorrection observed in lower-class speech. Knowing that r -pronunciation was a prestigious trait, many of the lower-class speakers in another Labov study—in which speakers were asked to read from word lists—added -r to words that did not have an r at all. The difference between this study and the "fourth floor" study

6111-573: The language of the rich." One explanation put forth for this is that poorer men are more likely to have the means of acquiring a second language than poorer women as a result of having "greater exposure" and "greater economic motivation." When different language varieties come into contact, a variety of relationships can form between the two, all typically influenced by prestige. When they have equal power or prestige, they form adstratum , as exemplified by Old English and Norse , which shared elements with each other more or less equally. Far more common

6208-553: The language that they speak is considered its own language or a dialect (implying that it does not have enough prestige to be considered its own language). Social class has a correlation with the language that is considered more prestigious, and studies in different communities have shown that sometimes members of a lower social class attempt to emulate the language of individuals in higher social classes to avoid how their distinct language would otherwise construct their identity. The relationship between language and identity construction as

6305-405: The language they speak, as linguist Laurie Bauer's description of Latin 's prestige exemplifies this phenomenon: The prestige accorded to the churchmen, lawyers and scholars who used Latin was transferred to the language itself. Latin was held to be noble and beautiful, not just the thoughts expressed in it or the people who used it. What is called 'beauty' in a language is more accurately seen as

6402-410: The language varieties of the prestigious social classes. Therefore, the prestige variety of a given language community or nation-state has symbolic significance and may act as an instrument of political power. The notion of a standard language in a speech community is related to the prestige of the languages spoken in the community. In general, "greater prestige tends to be attached to the notion of

6499-416: The languages, and it requires the establishment of a secure archive where the material can be stored once it is produced so that it can be accessed by future generations of speakers or scientists. Language revitalization is the process by which a language community through political, community, and educational means attempts to increase the number of active speakers of the endangered language. This process

6596-399: The linguistic literature—the language that is being lost generally undergoes changes as speakers make their language more similar to the language that they are shifting to. For example, gradually losing grammatical or phonological complexities that are not found in the dominant language. Generally the accelerated pace of language endangerment is considered to be a problem by linguists and by

6693-600: The media is the Oakland ebonics controversy of 1996. Illustrating the pervasiveness of public views on socio-educational issues in relation to language diversity, the Oakland, California school board came to a resolution recognizing Ebonics within public education. This proposition recognized Ebonics as a language system in attempts for the city to receive public funding for bilingual situations. Heavy debate arose amongst members of congress, newscasters, and other commentators with relatively little linguistics knowledge. The debate

6790-536: The most part, not learning the language. The third stage of language extinction is seriously endangered . During this stage, a language is unlikely to survive another generation and will soon be extinct. The fourth stage is moribund , followed by the fifth stage extinction . Many projects are under way aimed at preventing or slowing language loss by revitalizing endangered languages and promoting education and literacy in minority languages, often involving joint projects between language communities and linguists. Across

6887-455: The next. That is, there are no new speakers, adults or children." UNESCO operates with four levels of language endangerment between "safe" (not endangered) and "extinct" (no living speakers), based on intergenerational transfer: "vulnerable" (not spoken by children outside the home), "definitely endangered" (children not speaking), "severely endangered" (only spoken by the oldest generations), and "critically endangered" (spoken by few members of

6984-482: The number of speakers of a language. UNESCO seeks to prevent language extinction by promoting and supporting the language in education, culture, communication and information, and science. Another option is "post-vernacular maintenance": the teaching of some words and concepts of the lost language, rather than revival proper. As of June 2012 the United States has a J-1 specialist visa , which allows indigenous language experts who do not have academic training to enter

7081-731: The oldest generation, often semi-speakers ). UNESCO's Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger categorises 2,473 languages by level of endangerment. Using an alternative scheme of classification, linguist Michael E. Krauss defines languages as "safe" if it is considered that children will probably be speaking them in 100 years; "endangered" if children will probably not be speaking them in 100 years (approximately 60–80% of languages fall into this category) and "moribund" if children are not speaking them now. Many scholars have devised techniques for determining whether languages are endangered. One of

7178-450: The perceived prestige of certain languages. The ultimate result is the loss of linguistic diversity and cultural heritage within affected communities. The general consensus is that there are between 6,000 and 7,000 languages currently spoken. Some linguists estimate that between 50% and 90% of them will be severely endangered or dead by the year 2100. The 20 most common languages , each with more than 50 million speakers, are spoken by 50% of

7275-563: The perceived prestige of each dialect. He noted that New York City's "dropped 'r' has its origins in posh British speech", but after World War II , "with the loss of Britain's imperial status 'r'-less British speech ceased to be regarded as 'prestige speech'". In 1966, when Labov performed his study, pronouncing words like car and guard with r was then considered an element of prestige speech. This resulted in middle-class employees, once made conscious of having to pronounce "fourth floor", altering their pronunciation in order to match that of

7372-419: The phenomenon of variation in form among speakers of a language or languages. The presence of prestige dialects is a result of the relationship between the prestige of a group of people and the language that they use. Generally, the language or variety that is regarded as more prestigious in that community is the one used by the more prestigious group. The level of prestige a group has can also influence whether

7469-506: The power relationship between the languages of the groups that are in contact. The prevailing view among contemporary linguists is that, regardless of perceptions that a dialect or language is "better" or "worse" than its counterparts, when dialects and languages are assessed "on purely linguistic grounds, all languages—and all dialects—have equal merit". Additionally, which varieties, registers or features will be considered more prestigious depends on audience and context. There are thus

7566-406: The prestige of its speakers". These, and other attributes and factors contribute to how the language is viewed as being of high prestige, leaving a language or dialect with few or none of these attributes to be considered to be of low prestige. "Language is intertwined with culture," therefore there is often a strong correlation between the prestige of a group of people and the prestige accorded to

7663-499: The prestigious language tends to conservatively resist change over time while the low-prestige language, the local vernacular, undergoes normal language change. For instance, Latin, the high prestige language of Europe for many centuries, underwent minimal change while the everyday low prestige spoken languages evolved significantly. If, however, the two languages are spoken freely, the prestige language may undergo vernacularization and begin to incorporate vernacular features. An example

7760-495: The relationship between dialect and social stratification in English is William Labov 's 1966 study of the variable pronunciation of r in New York City . Labov went to three New York City department stores that catered to three clearly delineated socioeconomic groups— Saks (high), Macy's (middle), and S. Klein (low)—and studied how their employees pronounced the phrase "fourth floor". His results demonstrated that

7857-491: The same ideas. In a school in Mumbai, India, there is a large emphasis placed on speaking "good English." Thus, proficiency is not determined by ability to convey ideas, but rather the grammatical adherence of the speaker to the rules used in the "standard" English variety, and speaking English that way. This not only perpetuates the idea of a "correct" way of speaking in the classroom, but this subordination extends well outside of

7954-661: The social structure of one's community is often reflected through speech and language behavior. This pattern is even more prominent in dialects. This may in turn affect the sense of identity of the individual and the community as a whole, producing a weakened social cohesion as their values and traditions are replaced with new ones. This is sometimes characterized as anomie . Losing a language may also have political consequences as some countries confer different political statuses or privileges on minority ethnic groups, often defining ethnicity in terms of language. In turn, communities that lose their language may also lose political legitimacy as

8051-480: The speakers have to "correct" these "errors" and "adapt" to the local variety of Spanish, which is considered the model to follow. In other words, to be acknowledged as full participants in their respective communities, these participants have to sound like locals." Thus, social class plays a role in determining prestige, impacting the way that Latin American Spanish is acknowledged. One notable example of

8148-502: The speakers. However, some linguists, such as the phonetician Peter Ladefoged , have argued that language death is a natural part of the process of human cultural development, and that languages die because communities stop speaking them for their own reasons. Ladefoged argued that linguists should simply document and describe languages scientifically, but not seek to interfere with the processes of language loss. A similar view has been argued at length by linguist Salikoko Mufwene , who sees

8245-469: The standard, since it can function in higher domains, and has a written form." While there are some counterexamples, such as Arabic, "prestigious and standard varieties [tend to] coincide to the extent that the two terms can be used interchangeably." In countries like the United States , where citizens speak many different languages and come from a variety of national and ethnic groups , there

8342-426: The students that speak AAVE, but those insults also put the individuals who taught these students how to speak, such as their family members, in a subordinate position. In turn, this further reinforces stratification of social groups in a linguistic and social context. In schools around the world that teach English, speaking "proper" English is emphasized, even if other varieties are equally valid and able to communicate

8439-462: The time. Matthias Brenzinger reported in 2012 that one possible speaker remained, but that she refused to speak the language. The discrepancies could be because the language has multiple dialects and goes by several names, with scholars not always referring to the same population. Khoemana is listed as "critically endangered" in UNESCO 's Language Atlas . The loss of this endangered language would have

8536-474: The top, to Chamars and Bhangis at the bottom, and 90% of the overall population was Hindu , with the remaining 10% Muslim . Gumperz observed that the different castes were distinguished both phonologically and lexically , with each caste having a vocabulary specific to their subculture . Remarkably, the speech differences between Hindus and Muslims "are of the same order as those between individual touchable castes and certainly much less important than

8633-535: The variation between touchables and untouchables". Gumperz also observed that the lower prestige groups sought to imitate the higher prestige speech patterns and that over time, it had caused the evolution of the prestige away from the regional standard, as higher prestige groups sought to differentiate themselves from lower prestige groups. He concluded that in determining speech patterns in this community , "the determining factor seems to be informal friendship contacts" rather than work contacts. An example of this

8730-525: The way speakers use a language and their social status is a long recognized tool in sociolinguistics. In 1958, one of the earliest studies of the relationship between social differences and dialect differences was published by John Gumperz , who studied the speech patterns in Khalapur , a small, highly stratified village in India . In all, the village has 31 castes , ranging from Brahmins and Rajputs at

8827-457: The world is not known, and it is not well defined what constitutes a separate language as opposed to a dialect. Estimates vary depending on the extent and means of the research undertaken, and the definition of a distinct language and the current state of knowledge of remote and isolated language communities. The number of known languages varies over time as some of them become extinct and others are newly discovered. An accurate number of languages in

8924-418: The world was not yet known until the use of universal, systematic surveys in the later half of the twentieth century. The majority of linguists in the early twentieth century refrained from making estimates. Before then, estimates were frequently the product of guesswork and very low. One of the most active research agencies is SIL International , which maintains a database, Ethnologue , kept up to date by

9021-438: The world's population, but most languages are spoken by fewer than 10,000 people. The first step towards language death is potential endangerment . This is when a language faces strong external pressure, but there are still communities of speakers who pass the language to their children. The second stage is endangerment . Once a language has reached the endangerment stage, there are only a few speakers left and children are, for

9118-413: The world, many countries have enacted specific legislation aimed at protecting and stabilizing the language of indigenous speech communities . Recognizing that most of the world's endangered languages are unlikely to be revitalized, many linguists are also working on documenting the thousands of languages of the world about which little or nothing is known. The total number of contemporary languages in

9215-595: Was also observed in a study in Madrid, Spain, where Latin American Spanish -speakers noticed that certain features of their Spanish were evaluated negatively by local speakers. Spanish varieties spoken in Latin American countries have linguistic differences from the way many locals in Madrid speak. Their use of Latin American Spanish is associated with "symbolic and monetary capital (such as social class and ethnicity)." The study asserted that "To be accepted, therefore,

9312-430: Was extremely controversial, with beliefs stemming from the same beliefs that govern morality, religion, and ethics. Similar to the beliefs that govern these areas, the debate on Ebonics was believed to be inflexible. The discussion "surfaced foundational beliefs about language and language diversity and exposed an alternative, non-mainstream set of beliefs about language and language variation." Prestige influences whether

9409-751: Was the fact that speakers were closely monitoring their speech, not speaking spontaneously, and were thus careful to add r in an attempt to mimic a higher social class. Another prime example of covert prestige is within popular culture. The pervasiveness of hip hop music and its usage of AAVE has coined many widely used terms. Usage of AAVE has created a certain social capital, or clout, in certain social contexts. Contrastingly, in educational or hierarchical settings, usage of this variety can result in negative connotations. Due to this, practitioners are often perceived as having minimal academic prowess or being lowly educated. They can also be associated with poverty or low economic means. These inherent stigmas and biases impede

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