A Profile of Danger and Development of the Languages of Europe M. - - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

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A Profile of Danger and Development of the Languages of Europe M. Paul Lewis & Gary F. Simons SIL International Maintaining Languages, Developing Multilingualism University of Vienna, 10-11 June 2013 1 1 Overview Expanded Graded

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  • M. Paul Lewis & Gary F. Simons

SIL International Maintaining Languages, Developing Multilingualism University of Vienna, 10-11 June 2013

A Profile of Danger and Development of the Languages of Europe

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  • Expanded Graded Intergenerational Disruption Scale

(EGIDS) as a means for assessing development versus endangerment of all the world’s languages

  • European Charter for Regional and Minority Languages

(ECRML) as a benchmark for language policy in Europe

  • We use EGIDS to give a profile of the language situation in

Europe and to explore the relationship between ECRML recognition and the status of languages

Overview

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The basic premise of GIDS

  • Language shift (ending in extinction) happens as a

language loses functions in society

  • To reverse language shift, the community must work to

bring those functions back

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Language Shift Reversing Language Shift

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The 13 levels

  • f EGIDS
  • Adapted from: Lewis, M. Paul and

Gary F. Simons. 2010. Assessing endangerment: Expanding Fishman's GIDS. Revue Roumaine de Linguistique 55(2):103-120.

http://www.lingv.ro/RRL%202%202010%20art0 1Lewis.pdf

International

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National

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Provincial

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Wider communication

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Educational

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Developing

6a Vigorous 6b Threatened 7

Shifting

8a Moribund 8b Nearly Extinct 9

Dormant

10 Extinct

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  • A 13-level scale that expands on Fishman’s GIDS (1991)

by increasing its scope and giving greater internal precision

  • Enables us to provide an estimate of relative danger and

development for every language

  • EGIDS 6a (Vigorous) is taken as the unmarked “norm” of

sustainable oral use that represents the dividing line between endangerment (EGIDS 6b –10) and development (EGIDS 0 – 5)

  • Broad and shallow analysis complementing more focused

and deeper investigation

EGIDS (Lewis & Simons 2010)

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Vitality Profiles by World Regions (back)

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Language status in Europe vs. Rest of world (as counts)

n = 7,157 n = 323

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Language status in Europe vs. Rest of world (as %s)(World Map)

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Western Europe Northern Europe Southern Europe Eastern Europe Western Asia

UN Regions

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Language status by UN region (as counts)

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Language status by UN region (as %s) (World Map)

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Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Charter_for_Regional_or_Minority_Languages

  • Dark green —

Both signed and ratified

  • Light green —

Signed, but not ratified

  • White — Neither

signed nor ratified

  • Gray — Not a

member state

Status of ECRML in European states

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Language status in countries that have ratified ECRML vs. those that have not

n = 126 n = 194

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Language status in countries that have ratified ECRML vs. those that have not (%)

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Much more language endangerment where ECRML is not ratified

Language status ECRML is ratified Not ratified Institutional 41 (33%) 47 (24%) Developing or Vigorous 58 (46%) 55 (28%) In trouble, Dying,

  • r Extinct

27 (21%) 92 (47%) Totals 126 194

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Language status in ECRML countries

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Which languages are recognized?

  • Official languages (EGIDS 1,2) of other

countries

  • 84% (99 of 118) are recognized vs. 40% (41 of

102) for other languages

  • 100% of those with a population over 250,000

are recognized

  • 0% are recognized if the government

considers them to be a dialect of the national language (= blue dots on the scatter plot)

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Which languages are recognized?

  • For languages not official in any country and not a

dialect of the national language

  • 46% (41 of 90) are recognized with a greater

preference for larger languages

  • 50,000 and higher: 60% (12 of 20) are recognized
  • Under 50,000: 41% (29 of 70) are recognized
  • And a greater preference for languages that are
  • written and vital

» EGIDS 3–5: 57% (27 of 47) are recognized » EGIDS 6a–8b: 33% (14 of 43) are recognized

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Language status in ECRML countries

84% recognized 57% recognized

(excluding blue)

33% recognized

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Summary & Conclusions

  • The profile of Europe is unique, with a preponderance of

developed and developing languages.

  • Policy makes a difference in language maintenance and

development though it is not by itself a sufficient cause.

  • In spite of a policy focus on minority/minoritized languages,

already Institutionalized languages receive more recognition than do less developed languages.

  • The perilously endangered languages continue to receive less

attention than needed.

  • The EGIDS categories applied to the ECMRL recognitions are

helpful in pointing out the tendency of governments to recognize the already strong and to fail to notice the weakest of the weak.

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References

Fishman, Joshua A. 1991. Reversing language shift. Clevedon, UK: Multilingual Matters Ltd. Fishman, Joshua A. (ed.) 2001. Can threatened languages be saved? Reversing language shift, revisited: A 21st century perspective. Multilingual Matters 116. Clevedon, UK: Multilingual Matters Ltd. Krauss, Michael. 1992. The world's languages in crisis. Language. 68(1):4-10. Laakso, Johanna, Anneli Sarhimaa, Sia Spilpoulou Åkermark and Ria Touvanen. 2013. ELDIA Comparative Report. ELDIA Project. Leonard, Wesley Y. 2008. When is an "extinct language" not extinct? Miami, a formerly sleeping

  • language. In King, Kendall A., Natalie Schilling-Estes, Lyn Fogle, Jia Jackie Lou and Barabara Soukup

(eds.), Sustaining linguistic diversity Endangered and minority languages and language varieties. pp. 23--34. Washington D.C: Georgetown University Press. Lewis, M. Paul and Gary F. Simons. 2010. Assessing endangerment: Expanding Fishman's GIDS. Revue Roumaine de Linguistique. 55(2):103-120. http://www.lingv.ro/RRL%202%202010%20art01Lewis.pdf. Lewis, M. Paul, Gary F. Simons and Charles Fennig (eds.) 2013. Ethnologue Languages of the World, 17th edition. Dallas: SIL International. Mufwene, Salikoko S. 2002. Colonisation, globalisation, and the future of languages in the twenty-first

  • century. International Journal on Multicultural Societies. 4:162-193

Simons, Gary F. and M. Paul Lewis. Forthcoming. The world's languages in crisis: A 20 year update. In Mihas, Elena, Bernard Perley, Gabriel Rei-Doval and Kathleen Wheatley (eds.), Proceedings of the 26th Linguistics Symposium, University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins.

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Thank You!

paul_lewis@sil.org gary_simons@sil.org

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