Evans Dying Words

Endangered Languages and What They Have to Tell Us
1. Auflage 2009
ISBN: 978-1-4443-1044-3
Verlag: John Wiley & Sons
Format: PDF
Kopierschutz: Adobe DRM (»Systemvoraussetzungen)

E-Book, Englisch, 312 Seiten, E-Book

Reihe: The Language Library

The next century will see more than half of the world's 6,000languages become extinct, and most of these will disappear withoutbeing adequately recorded. Written by one of the leading figures inlanguage documentation, this fascinating book explores whathumanity stands to lose as a result.
* Explores the unique philosophy, knowledge, and culturalassumptions of languages, and their impact on our collectiveintellectual heritage
* Questions why such linguistic diversity exists in the firstplace, and how can we can best respond to the challenge ofrecording and documenting these fragile oral traditions while theyare still with us
* Written by one of the leading figures in languagedocumentation, and draws on a wealth of vivid examples from his ownfield experience
* Brings conceptual issues vividly to life by weaving inportraits of individual 'last speakers' and anecdotesabout linguists and their discoveries

Autoren/Hrsg.

Evans, Nicholas

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Acknowledgments.
Prologue.
A Note on the Presentation of Linguistic Material.
Part I: The Library of Babel.
1. Warramurrungunji's Children.
2. Four Millennia to Tune In.
Part II: A Great Feast of Languages.
3. A Galapagos of Tongues.
4. Your Mind in Mine: Social Cognition in Grammar.
Part III: Faint Tracks in an Ancient Wordscape: Languages andDeep World History.
5. Sprung from Some Common Source.
6. Travels in the Logosphere: Hooking Ancient Words onto AncientWorlds.
7. Keys to Decipherment: How Living Languages Can UnlockForgotten Scripts.
Part IV: Ratchetting Each Other Up: The Coevolution ofLanguage, Culture, and Thought.
8. Trellises of the Mind: How Language Trains Thought.
9. What Verse and Verbal Art Can Weave.
Part V: Listening While We Can.
10. Renewing the Word.
Epilogue: Sitting in the Dust, Standing in the Sky.
Notes.
References.
Index of Language Names.
General Index.

Über Autor(innen)

Nicholas Evans is Professor of Linguistics at the Australian National University and a fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities. He is on the editorial boards of the journals Linguistic Typology and Australian Journal of Linguistics, and on the Scientific Advisory Board of the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics in Nijmegen. He is the author of a number of books, including Bininj Gun-wok (2 volumes, 2001), Archaeology and Linguistics: Aboriginal Australia in Global Perspective (co-edited with Patrick McConvell, 1998), and A Grammar of Kayardild (1992).