Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-v9fdk Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-07T11:11:31.195Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

A response to ‘Assessing levels of endangerment in the Catalogue of Endangered Languages (ELCat) using the Language Endangerment Index (LEI)’, by Nala Huiying Lee & John Van Way

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 February 2016

Lenore A. Grenoble*
Affiliation:
The University of Chicago, Department of Linguistics 1115 East 48th Street, Chicago, IL 60637, USAgrenoble@uchicago.edu

Extract

The Catalogue of Endangered Languages (ELCat) is one of several similar responses to a perceived need for better data on language vitality. My remarks here are framed as a direct reply to Lee & Van Way's article, but really address larger issues in the ongoing debate about a perceived need to classify, inventory, and enumerate endangered languages. Lee & Van Way focus on one aspect of ELCat, the Language Endangerment Index (LEI), discussing a number of shortcomings in other current models. As an instrument for determining the level of language endangerment, the LEI is presented as a preferable alternative to other metrics, including Fishman's (1991) Graded Intergenerational Disruption Scale (GIDS), or EGIDS, the Expanded scale, based on the work of Lewis & Simons (2010), or UNESCO's (2003) expert scale. Lee & Van Way's discussion presupposes that such metrics are needed, and that it is beneficial to have a method for measuring vitality. Specifically, they argue that ‘for those concerned with preserving the world's fragile linguistic diversity, it is desirable to be able to quantify language vitality’. This is the underlying assumption of not only ELCat and LEI, but of other language catalogues, such as the Ethnologue (Lewis, Simons, & Fennig 2015), UNESCO's Atlas (Moseley 2010), and other vitality metrics, as discussed in Lee & Van Way.

Type
Article Commentary
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2016 

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

Austin, Peter K., & Sallabank, Julia (2011). Introduction. In Austin, Peter K. & Sallabank, Julia (eds.), The Cambridge handbook of endangered languages, 124. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Bourdieu, Pierre (1982). Ce que parler veut dire. Paris: Fayard.Google Scholar
Dobrin, Lise; Austin, Peter K.; & Nathan, David (2009). Dying to be counted: The commodification of endangered languages in documentary linguistics. In Austin, Peter K. (ed.), Language documentation and description, vol. 6, 3752. London: SOAS.Google Scholar
Evans, Nicholas (2001). The last speaker is dead: Long live the last speaker! In Newman, Paul & Ratliff, Martha (eds.), Linguistic fieldwork, 250–81. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Fishman, Joshua A. (1991). Reversing language shift. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Grenoble, Lenore A. (2010). Revitalization and documentation in the Siberian context. In Ramallo, Fernando & Farfán, José Antonio Flores (eds.), New perspectives on endangered languages: Bridging gaps between sociolinguistics, documentation and language revitalization, 6591. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Grenoble, Lenore A., & Olsen (Puju), Carl Christian (2014). Language and well-being in the Arctic: Building indigenous language vitality and sustainability. Arctic Yearbook 2014. Online: www.arcticyearbook.com/images/Arcticles_2014/GrenobleOlsen.Google Scholar
Heller, Monica (2003). Globalization, the new economy, and the commodification of language and identity. Journal of Sociolinguistics 7(4):473–92.Google Scholar
Hill, Jane H. (2002). ‘Expert rhetorics’ in advocacy for endangered languages: Who is listening and what do they hear? Journal of Linguistic Anthropology 12(2):119–33.Google Scholar
Inuit Circumpolar Council (2009). A circumpolar Inuit declaration on sovereignty in the Arctic. Online: http://www.inuitcircumpolar.com/sovereignty-in-the-arctic.html.Google Scholar
Lewis, M. Paul (ed.), (2009). Ethnologue: Languages of the world, sixteenth edition. Dallas, Texas: SIL International. Online version: http://www.ethnologue.com/16.Google Scholar
Lewis, M. Paul (2015). Ethnologue launches subscription service. Online: http://www.ethnologue.com/ethnoblog/m-paul-lewis/ethnologue-launches-subscription-service#.Vm0vhHvB_KA; accessed December 12, 2015.Google Scholar
Lewis, M. Paul, & Simons, Gary F. (2010). Assessing endangerment: Expanding Fishman's GIDS. Revue Roumaine de Linguistique 55(2):103–20.Google Scholar
Lewis, M. Paul, Simons, Gary F.; & Fennig, Charles D. (eds.) (2015). Ethnologue: Languages of the world, 18th edn.Dallas, TX: SIL International. Online: http://www.ethnologue.com.Google Scholar
Magomedov, Magomed (2014). Soxranenie i razvitie jazykov narodov Dagestana: Velenie vremeni [The reservation and development of the languages of the peoples of Daghestan: Behest of the time]. RIA Dagestan 03.10.2014. Online: http://www.riadagestan.ru/news/society/magomed_magomedov_sokhranenie_i_razvitie_yazykov_narodov_dagestana_velenie_vremeni/?print=Y.Google Scholar
Moore, Robert E.; Pietikäinen;, Sari & Blommaert, Jan (2010). Counting the losses: Numbers as the language of language endangerment. Sociolinguistic Studies 4(1):126.Google Scholar
Moseley, Christopher (ed.) (2010). Atlas of the world's languages in danger, 3rd edn.Paris: UNESCO Publishing. Online: http://www.unesco.org/culture/en/endangeredlanguages/atlas.Google Scholar
Saami Political Program. (1986). Saami Council statements. Online: http://www.saamicouncil.net/?deptid=2178; accessed May 1, 2014.Google Scholar
Samojlova, M. N. (2009). Jazyikovaja situacija i jazykovaja politika v sovremennom obshchestve [The language situation and language policy in modern society]. Vestnik Volgogradskogo gosudarstvennogo instituta Ser. 2, Jazykoznanie 9(1):160–65.Google Scholar
UNESCO ad hoc expert group on endangered languages (Brenzinger, Matthias, Dwyer, Arienne M., de Graaf, Tjeerd, Grinevald, Collette, Krauss, Michael, Miyaoka, Osahito, Ostler, Nicholas, Sakiyama, Osamu, Villalón, María E., Yamamoto, Akira Y., Zapeda, Ofelia) (2003). Language vitality and endangerment. Document submitted to the International Expert Meeting on UNESCO Programme Safeguarding of Endangered Languages, Paris, 10–12 March 2003. Online: http://www.unesco.org/culture/ich/doc/src/00120-EN.pdf.Google Scholar
Urla, Jacqueline (1993). Cultural politics in an age of statistics: Numbers, nations, and the making of Basque identity. American Ethnologist 20(4):818–43.Google Scholar
Vakhtin, N. B. (1992). K tipologii jazykovix situacij na krajnem severe (predvaritel'nye rezul'taty issledovanija) [On the typology of linguistic situations in the Far North (preliminary results of a study)]. Voprosy jazykoznanija 41(4):4559.Google Scholar
Vakhtin, N. B. (2001). Jazyki narodov severa v XX veke: Ocherki jazykogo sdviga [Languages of the peoples of the north in the 20th century: Studies in language shift]. St. Petersburg: Dmitri Bulanin.Google Scholar