Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-lnqnp Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-23T02:37:58.192Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Independent, Dependent and Interdependent Variables in Language Decay and Language Death

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 December 2017

Wolfgang U. Dressler
Wolfgang U. Dressler*
Affiliation:
Department of Linguistics, Vienna University, Porzellangasse 4, A-1090 Vienna, Austria, and Austrian Centre for Digital Humanities of the Austrian Academy of Sciences, Sonnenfelsgasse 19, A-1010 Vienna, Austria. Email: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This contribution gives in its first part an overview on factors of the decay and death of whole languages, focusing on dependency relations between these factors. They are organised along the following dimensions: socio-political, socio-economic, sociocultural, socio-psychological, and linguistic dimensions. The order of these dimensions partially represents a causal chain from left to right, but with many feedback relations. The second part of this article deals with early (socio-)linguistic indicators of language decay and discusses in this respect massive and asymmetric borrowing from the dominant into the recessive language, the loss of productivity of word formation patterns in the latter (illustrated from Breton), changes in name-giving (doubtful), shift of ‘foreign accent’ from the dominant to the recessive language, borrowing of morphological and syntactic patterns (inconclusive).

Type
Focus: Language Endangerment and Revitalization
Information
European Review , Volume 26 , Issue 1 , February 2018 , pp. 120 - 129
Copyright
© Academia Europaea 2017 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

References and Notes

1. Krauss, M. (1992) The world’s languages in crisis. Language, 68, pp. 6–10.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
2. Brenzinger, M. et al. (=UNESCO Ad Hoc Expert Group on Endangered Languages) (2003) Language Vitality and Endangerment (Paris: UNESCO).Google Scholar
3. Janse, M. and Tol, S. (Eds) (2003) Language Death and Language Maintenance (Amsterdam: Benjamins).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
4. Wohlgemuth, J. (2005) Bedrohte Vielfalt. Aspekte des Sprach(en)tods (Berlin: Weißensee).Google Scholar
5. Austin, P. and Simpson, A. (Eds) (2007) Endangered Languages (Hamburg: Helmut Buske Verlag).Google Scholar
6. Brenzinger, M. (Ed.) (2007) Language Diversity Endangerment (Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
7. Harrison, K. D. (2007) When Languages Die (Oxford: Oxford University Press).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
8. Austin, P. and Sallabank, J. (Eds) (2011) The Cambridge Handbook of Endangered Languages (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).Google Scholar
9. Dorian, N.C. (2014) Small-Language Fates and Prospects. Lessons on Persistence and Change from Endangered Languages (Leiden: Brill).Google Scholar
10. Thomason, S.G. (2015) Endangered Languages. An Introduction (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
11. Hornsby, M. (2015) Language Endangerment (Poznań: Adam Mickiewicz University), http://languagesindanger.eu/book-of-knowledge (Chapter 8).Google Scholar
12. Bradley, D. (2015) A survey of language endangerment. http://www.academia.edu/1559870/A_survey_of_language_endangerment Google Scholar
13. Moseley, C. (2010/2015) Atlas of the World’s Languages in Danger (Paris: UNESCO Publishing). www.unesco.org/culture/languages-atlas Google Scholar
14. Montrul, S. (2011) Morphological errors in Spanish second language learners and heritage speakers. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 33, pp. 163–192.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
15. Bardovi-Harlig, K. and Stringer, D. (2010) Variables in second language attrition: Advancing the state of the art. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 32, pp 1–45.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
16. Campbell, L. and Muntzel, M.C. (1989) The structural consequences of language death. In: N.C. Dorian (Ed.), Investigating Obsolescence: Studies in Language Contraction and Death (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), pp. 181–196.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
17. Sasse, H.-J. (1992) Theory of language death. In: M. Brenzinger (Ed.), Language Death (Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter), pp. 7–29.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
18. Dressler, W.U. and de Cillia, R. (2006) Spracherhaltung, Sprachverfall, Sprachtod. In: U. Ammon, N. Dittmar, K. J. Mattheier and P. Trudgill (Eds), Sociolinguistics 3 (Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter), pp. 2258–2271.Google Scholar
19. Mattheier, K.J. (1980) Phasen sprachlicher Veränderungsprozesse in Diglossie-Gebieten. In: P.H. Nelde (Ed.), Sprachkontakt und Sprachkonflikt (Wiesbaden: Steiner)), pp. 407–412.Google Scholar
20. Dorian, N.C. (1982) Language loss and maintenance in language contact situations. In: R.D. Lambert and B.F. Freed (Eds), The Loss of Language Skills (Rowley: Newbury), pp. 44–59.Google Scholar
21. Gal, S. (1989) Lexical innovation and loss: The use and value of restricted Hungarian. In: N.C. Dorian (Ed.), Investigating Obsolescence: Studies in Language Contraction and Death (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), pp. 313–331.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
22. Denison, N. (1977) Language death or language suicide? International Journal of the Sociology of Language, 12, pp. 13–22.Google Scholar
23. Hill, J.H. and Hill, K. (1978) Honorific usage in Modern Nahuatl. Language, 54, pp. 123–155.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
24. Tsitsipis, L.D. (1984) Functional restriction and grammatical reduction in Albanian language in Greece. Zeitschrift für Balkanologie, 20, pp. 122–131.Google Scholar
25. Barry, A. and Nash, D. (1999) Lexical replacement and cognate equilibrium in Australia. Australian Journal of Linguistics, 19, pp. 5–56.Google Scholar
26. Dorian, N.C. (1981) Language Death: The Life Cycle of a Scottish Gaelic Dialect (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
27. Knab, T. and Hasson de Knab, L. (1979) Language death in the valley of Puebla: A socio-geographic approach. Proceedings of the Berkeley Linguistic Society, 5, pp. 471–483.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
28. Dressler, W.U. (1982) Acceleration, retardation und reversal in language decay?. In: R.L. Cooper (Ed.), Language Spread (Bloomington: Indiana University Press), pp. 321–336.Google Scholar
29. Dressler, W.U. (1977) Wortbildung bei Sprachverfall. in: Perspektiven der Wortbildungsforschung. In: H. Brekle and D. Kastovsky (Eds), Perspektiven der Wortbildungsforschung (Bonn: Bouvier), pp. 62–69.Google Scholar
30. Dressler, W.U. (1981) Language shift and language death – A Protean challenge for the linguist. Folia Linguistica, 15, pp. 5–28.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
31. Williamson, R.C., van Eerde, J.A. and Williamson, V. (1983) Language maintenance and shift in a Breton and Welsh sample. Word, 34, pp. 67–88.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
32. Rindler-Schjerve, R. (1987) Sprachkontakt auf Sardinien: Soziolinguistische Untersuchungen des Sprachenwechsels im ländlichen Bereich (Tübingen: Narr).Google Scholar
33. Jones, M.C. (2001) Jersey Norman French: A Linguistic Study of an Obsolescent Dialect (Oxford: Publications of the Philological Society 34).Google Scholar
34. Dressler, W.U. and Hufgard, J. (1980) Etudes phonologiques sur le breton sud-bigouden (Wien: Akademie-Verlag).Google Scholar
35. Lerot-Becot, Y. (1932) Kentelioù war al Labour-Douar (Landerne).Google Scholar
36. de Cillia, R., Menz, F., Dressler, W.U. and Cech, P. (1998) Linguistic Minorities in Austria. In: C.B. Paulston and D. Peckham (Eds), Linguistic Minorities in Central and Eastern Europe (Cleveland: Multilingual Matters), pp. 18–36.Google Scholar
37. Priestly, T.M. (1987) Verb productivity: Evidence from three varieties of Slovene. Slovene Studies, 9, pp. 195–203.Google Scholar
38. Hafner, S. and Prunč, E. (1980) Lexikalische Inventarisierung der slowenischen Volkssprache in Kärnten (Grundsätzliches und Allgemeines) (Graz: Institut für Slawistik der Universität Graz).Google Scholar
39. Hafner, S. and Prunč, E. (Eds) (1982) Thesaurus der slowenischen Volkssprache in Kärnten (Wien: Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften).Google Scholar
40. Karničar, L. (1986) Der Obir-Dialekt in Kärnten: Die Mundart von Ebriach/Obirsko (Wien: Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften).Google Scholar
41. Mithun, M. (1989) The incipient obsolescence of polysythesis: Cayuga in Ontario and Oklahoma. In: N.C. Dorian (Ed.), Investigating Obsolescence: Studies in Language Contraction and Death (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), pp. 243–258.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
42. Dressler, W.U. (1991) The sociolinguistic and patholinguistic attrition of Breton phonology, morphology, and morphonology. In: H.W. Seliger and R.M. Vago (Eds), First Language Attrition (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), pp. 99–112.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
43. Watson, S. (1989) Scottish and Irish Gaelic: The giant’s bed-fellows. In: N.C. Dorian, (Ed.) Investigating Obsolescence: Studies in Language Contraction and Death (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), pp. 41–59.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
44. Trudgill, P. (1977) Creolization in reverse: Reduction and simplification in the Albanian dialects of Greece. Transactions of the Philological Society, 1976/7, 32–50.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
45. Kieffer, C. (1977) The approaching end of the relict Southeast Iranian languages Ōrmuri and Paräci in Afghanistan. International Journal of the Sociology of Language, 12, 71–100.Google Scholar
46. Leap, W.L. (1981) American Indian Languages. In: C.A. Ferguson and S.B. Heath (Eds), Language in the USA (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), pp. 116–144.Google Scholar
47. Gardani, F. (2008) Borrowing of Inflectional Morphemes in Language Contact (Frankfurt: Lang).CrossRefGoogle Scholar