Language Endangerment and Its Implications

Language endangerment is a fundamental issue for humanity. What rights do minority communities have concerning their languages? How does each language conceptualize the world differently? How much knowledge about the world and a local ecosystem is lost when a language disappears? What is the process involved and how can insights about this process contribute to linguistic theory? What typological insights will be lost if undescribed languages disappear before their unique structural properties are known? How can language shift be stopped or reversed?

Contents of the Volume

This volume comprises:
a general overview introduction
four theoretical chapters on what happens during language shift
ten case studies of autochthonous languages under threat
four case studies of migrant languages at risk
three concluding chapters discussing strategies and resources for language maintenance.