Interview: Seven questions for K. David Harrison | The Economist - 0 views
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A language hotspot is a contiguous region which has, first of all, a very high level of language diversity. Secondly, it has high levels of language endangerment. Thirdly, it has relatively low levels of scientific documentation (recordings, dictionaries, grammars, etc.). We've identified two dozen hotspots to date
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The hotspots model allows us to visualise the complex global distribution of language diversity, to focus research on ares of greatest urgency, and also to predict where we might encounter languages not yet known to science.
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The human knowledge base is eroding as we lose languages, exacerbated by the fact that most of them have never been written down or recorded
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In Tuvan, in order to say "go" you must first know the direction of the current in the nearby river and your own trajectory relative to it. Tuvan "go" verbs therefore index the landscape in a way that cannot survive displacement or translation.
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People of all ages, but especially children, can easily be bilingual. New research shows bilingualism strengthens the brain, by building up what psychologists call the cognitive reserve.
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I and many fellow linguists would estimate that we only have a detailed scientific description of something like 10% to 15% of the world's languages, and for 85% we have no real documentation at all. Thus it seems premature to begin constructing grand theories of universal grammar. If we want to understand universals, we must first know the particulars.
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Their knowledge of ice, their words for it, and the hunting skills and lifeways are all receding in tandem with the Yupik language itself.
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If we can learn to value the intellectual diversity that is fostered by linguistic variety, we can all help to ensure its survival.
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I'll close with the inspiring example of Matukar, a language spoken in a small village in Papua New Guinea. Down to about 600 speakers (out of a tribal group of 900+), Matukar is under immense pressure from the national language Tok Pisin and from English.
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Working with me under the National Geographic Enduring Voices Project, he devised a written form for what had been until 2010 a purely oral language. Rudolf and his mother Kadagoi Raward patiently recorded thousands of words in their language.
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"The human knowledge base is eroding as we lose languages, exacerbated by the fact that most of them have never been written down or recorded... Each language is a unique expression of human creativity... it seems premature to begin constructing grand theories of universal grammar...If we can learn to value the intellectual diversity that is fostered by linguistic variety, we can all help to ensure its survival."