Language in Danger: How Language Loss Threatens Our Future

by Andrew Dalby (Author)

• Used

  Hardcover
  2002

  $3.27

  Language extinction has been a feature of the 20th century - it is expected that a language will become extinct every two weeks of the the 21st century. Will languages continue to die out? If so, must culture continue to become more impoverished? Everybody who takes an interest in our cultural future needs to ask these questions. This book should assist in this endeavour by exploring the life cycle of languages: their birth, their interaction and - especially - what happens when they die.

• Used

  Paperback
  2003

  $3.27

  Every two weeks a language dies. Of the estimated 5000 languages spoken worldwide, from Cherokee to Cornish, only half are likely to survive to the end of this century. What does this mean for the human race? Will we eventually become a one-language planet? And does it even matter? This study shows why language loss affects us all. It explores how languages become extinct: through political power, in the case of Latin engulfing the Ancient Mediterranean; through brute force, such as that used against the Native Americans and Australians; and through economics - as the phenomenal rise of English as the language of business and mass communications shows. Andrew Dalby also explains how this linguistic globalization means a loss not just of cultural identity and diversity, but also of the unique world-view and acquired local knowledge enshrined in the way we speak. The consequences, Dalby argues, will be devastating - not just for language, but for the future of humankind itself.