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Author Harrison, K. David.

Title When languages die : the extinction of the world's languages and the erosion of human knowledge / K. David Harrison.

Publication Info. Oxford ; New York : Oxford University Press, 2007.

Item Status

Location Call No. Status OPAC Message Public Note Gift Note
 Moore Stacks  P40.5.L33 H37 2007    Available  ---
Description x, 292 pages : illustrations, maps ; 24 cm
Bibliography Includes bibliographical references (pages 263-283) and index.
Contents A world of many (fewer) voices -- An extinction of (ideas about) species -- Case study: vanishing herds and reindeer words -- Many moons ago: traditional calendars and time-reckoning -- Case study: nomads of western Mongolia -- An atlas in the mind -- Case study: wheel of fortune and a blessing -- Silent storytellers, lost legends -- Case study: new rice versus old knowledge -- Endangered number systems: counting to twenty on your toes -- Case study: the leaf-cup people, India's modern 'primitives' -- Worlds within words.
Summary In When Languages Die, K. David Harrison illustrates the individual face of language loss, as well as its global scale. Languages are the accretion of thousands of years of a peopleʼs science and art - from observations of ecological patterns to creation myths. The author shows that the disappearance of a language is a loss not only for the community of speakers itself but also for our common human knowledge of mathematics, biology, geography, philosophy, agriculture, and linguistics. In this century, we face a massive erosion of the human knowledge base. The global abandonment of indigenous languages will bring a massive loss of accumulated knowledge and culture - this book argues for the irreplaceable nature of these unique knowledge systems and the urgency of documenting them before they are lost forever. Book jacket.
Includes information on Australia, calendars, creation myths, directions, epics, fish, folksonomy, genetics, grammar, Himalayan mountains, horse, indigenous people, knowledge, literacy, maps, metaphor, months, naming, nomads, oral traditions, Os (middle Chulym), Papua New Guinea, place names, reindeer, rivers, shamans, sign languages, singing, song, species, taxonomy, units of time, time reckoning, Tofa (Tofalar, Karagas), Tuvan, writing systems, Yukaghir, etc.
Subject Language obsolescence.
Language obsolescence.
ISBN 9780195181920
0195181921
0195181821