Language Links

HANDOUT ON ENDANGERED LANGUAGES
Complied by Randy J. LaPolla (ctrandy@cityu.edu.hk)
(an HTML version of this is on the web at http://ctspc05.cphk.hk/lapolla/el.html)

Of the 6,000 languages listed in Ethnologue (Grimes 1992) for which there are population figures,
o 52% are spoken by less than 10,000 people
o 28% by less than 1,000 and
o 83% are restricted to single countries, and so are particularly exposed to the policies of a single government.
o 10% are spoken by less than 100 speakers
At the other end of the scale, 10 major languages, each spoken by over 109 million people, are the mother tongues of almost half (49%) of the world's population.
There is agreement among linguists who have considered the situation that over half of the world's languages are moribund, i.e. not effectively being passed on to the next generation. We and our children, then, are living at the point in human history where, within perhaps two generations, most languages in the world will die out. (Adapted from the Manifesto of the Foundation for Endangered Languages Iatiku #2, p.2.)

Following is a list of organizations attempting to do something about this situation, plus other resources for people interested in the problem of endangered languages.

THE FOUNDATION FOR ENDANGERED LANGUAGES: The FEL was conceived as a free and independent association of those who are concerned at the loss of more and more of the worldís languages. It exists to support, enable and assist the documentation, protection and promotion of endangered languages. In order to do this, it aims:

(i) To raise awareness of endangered languages, both inside and outside the communities where they are spoken, through all channels and media
(ii) To support the use of endangered languages in all contexts: at home, in education, in the media, and in social, cultural and economic life
(iii) To monitor linguistic policies and practices, and to seek to influence the appropriate authorities where necessary
(iv) To support the documentation of endangered languages, by offering financial assistance, training, or facilities for the publication of results
(v) To collect together and make available information of use in the preservation of endangered languages
(vi) To disseminate information on all of the above activities as widely as possible.

The Foundation for Endangered Languages Newsletter Iatiku can be found at http://www.bris.ac.uk/Depts/Philosophy/CTLL/FEL/

INTERNATIONAL CLEARING HOUSE FOR ENDANGERED LANGUAGES (ICHEL): The Comité International Permanent de Linguistes unanimously passed the following resolution at the Quebec Congress of August 1992:

As the disappearance of any one language constitutes an irretrievable loss to mankind, it is for UNESCO a task of great urgency to respond to this situation by promoting and, if possible, sponsoring programs of linguistic organizations for the description in the form of grammars, dictionaries and texts, including of the oral literatures of hitherto unstudied or inadequately documented endangered and dying languages.

At the general conference held in Paris in November 1993, the General Assembly decided to adopt the "Endangered Languages Project" (also known as "Red Book of Endangered Languages") as a UNESCO project. In co-operation with this project, the International Clearing House for Endangered Languages was established as part of the Department of Asian and Pacific Linguistics in the Institute of Cross-Cultural Studies of the University of Tokyo. The Department aims to carry out research into the languages of the world, and particularly, of Asia and the Pacific region, with a special focus on Endangered Languages. To this end, the members of the Department conduct field work, collect published and unpublished materials, such as texts, vocabularies, and phonetic data, analyse them, and turn them into electronic corpora. The Department also publishes a departmental newsletter.

In the world-wide distribution of the information on Endangered Languages, the Centre is to be in close collaboration with the world-wide network on Endangered Languages run by Dr. T. Matthew Ciolek of the Computer Centre in the Research School of Pacific and Asian studies of the Australian National University, Canberra Australia. (coombspapers@coombs.anu.edu.au or tmciolek@coombs.anu.edu.au see below for more information).

To celebrate the establishment of the Clearinghouse an International Symposium on Endangered Languages was held in Tokyo (18-21 November 1995), with papers by Michael Krauss, Stephen Wurm, Tomomi Okuda, David Bradley, Suwilai Premsirat, Francis Ekka, Matthias Brenzinger, Vida Mikhaltchenko, Akira Yamamoto, Willem Adelaar and Shigeru Tsuchida. Proceedings are to be published abstract of the papers can be found on the web site.

More and more linguistic organizations are emphasizing research on endangered languages or forming special committees on endangered languages. Some organizations (e.g., Linguistic Society of Japan, Linguistic Society of America, German Linguistic Society) are gathering information on the endangered language research that their members have done or are carrying out. The Clearing House acts to coordinate such efforts which are, otherwise, scattered and unhelpful to each other.

The ICHEL database: (ftp://tooyoo.L.u-tokyo.ac.jp http://www.tooyoo.L.u-tokyo.ac.jp): One of the major roles of the department is to store linguistic data such as the copora for the grammatical analysis of languages, information on specific topics such as "endangered languages", and various programs for analyzing texts, and to provide all these materials to the linguists of the world. Current contents of the database (including materials in preparation):

(1) "Red Book on Endangered Languages"
(2) Corpus of various languages (texts, field notes, sound data, etc.)
(3) Programs for text-processing (sort, kwic, etc.)
(4) Typesetting and printing utilities for various languages (TeX, etc.)

The "Red book on Endangered languages" is a code name for any kind of activity related to endangered languages. Please note that this is a joint project of several research centers around the world, not an activity of a single 'clearing house'. At present, they have data on endangered languages in Asian and Pacific area (compiled by S. A. Wurm and S. Tsuchida), and languages in Africa (compiled by B. Heine and M. Brenzinger). All these data are encoded in HTML format and easily accessible to any kind of WWW browser. For other areas, we are either requesting data from linguists around the world or have links to other research centers which have relevant data. For example, the data on the endangered languages of Europe have been stored in Finland by Tapani Salminen (http://www.helsinki.fi/ ~tsalmin/endangered.html) and in such a case they simply have a link to this site. (In order to convert IPA symbols into the HTML format, ad hoc string of characters representing phonetic symbols, with '&' used as the escape character, were temporarily defined: &? glottal stop, &a schwa, &o open-mid o, &e open-mid e, &i central i, &d implosive d, .....)

Format of the Red Book data:
Name of the language
(1) Variant(s):
(2) Geographical Location:
(3) Relationships (isolate, distantly related to known
language(s), closely related to known languages, dialect, etc.):
(4) Present State of the Language:
a) children speakers:
b) mean age of youngest speakers:
c) distribution by sex:
d) total number of speakers, members of the ethnic group:
e) degree of speakers' competence:
f) sources:
(i) information about the language:
(ii) published and unpublished material of the language:
(iii) competent scholar(s) and institution(s):
(5) Other Relevant Remarks:

International Clearing House for Endangered Languages
Department of Asian and Pacific Linguistics,
Institute of Cross-Cultural Studies,
Faculty of Letters, University of Tokyo,
Hongo 7-3-1, Bunkyo-ku, TOKYO 113 JAPAN

phone: +81-3-5800-5790 fax: +81-3-5800-3740 e-mail: staff@tooyoo.L.u-tokyo.ac.jp
WWW (including newsletter): http://www.tooyoo.L.u-tokyo.ac.jp
All newsletter-related correspondence should be addressed to: Kazuto MATSUMURA.

Faculty Members: Tasaku TSUNODA, Director (tsunoda@tooyoo.L.u-tokyo.ac.jp) Kazuto MATSUMURA (kmatsum@tooyoo.L.u-tokyo.ac.jp) Rei FUKUI (fkr@tooyoo.L.u-tokyo.ac.jp).

THE ENDANGERED LANGUAGE FUND, INC. Department of Linguistics, Yale University, New Haven, CT 06520 U.S.A. http://sapir.ling.yale.edu/~elf/study.html
This is a new, non-profit U.S. corporation dedicated to:
* The scientific study of endangered languages
* Support of native community attempts to maintain an endangered language's viability
* Dissemination of the results both to the native communities and the scholarly world

Languages have died off throughout history, but never have we faced the massive extinction that is threatening the world right now. As language professionals, we are faced with a stark reality: Much of what we study will not be available to future generations. The cultural heritage of many peoples is crumbling while we look on. Are we willing to shoulder the blame for having stood by and done nothing? The tide is too large to turn back completely, but the Endangered Language Fund is designed to do what we can.

The Fund supports communities that are trying to teach dying languages to a new generation. Many languages have skipped a generation, and extraordinary methods are needed for the language to have any hope. Other languages would be helped immensely by even traditional aids such as grammars and dictionaries. Modern language teaching, including interactive programs, video instruction, and practice tapes can also be of service. Even languages that cannot be revived can be recorded to the extent possible, preserving language in a way not available to previous generations. These and other projects will be supported through the awarding of grants to individuals and language communities. The number of awards that we can make will be directly dependent on the amount of money we raise. There are four levels of support: Member: $50 Supporting Member: $100 Sustaining Member: $500 and up Friend of the Fund: Any amount.

Members will receive our newsletter. Supporting members also receive a discount on one language book (we are negotiating with several publishers on this). Sustaining members will also receive a copy of the language artifact (text, video, tape, etc.) of their choice from the year's efforts.

LINGUISTIC SOCIETY OF AMERICA COMMITTEE ON ENDANGERED LANGUAGES AND THEIR PRESERVATION (CLEP): The following is a summary of major action items proposed or discussed at the open meetings of the CLEP held at the LSA meetings in 1997 and 1998. Anyone interested in forming, or being involved in, a task force on any of these issues (or any other issue), or who would like to be put on the CLEP electronic mailing list, should contact the chair, Tony Woodbury (acw@mail.utexas.edu).

1. Development of a Plan for Honoring the Linguistic Contributions of Native Speakers of Endangered Languages.The Executive Committee of the LSA has requested that the CELP propose a plan for honoring endangered language (EL) speakers who have contributed to linguistics, for example, by carrying out language preservation work in their communities, or by serving as long term consultants for documentation projects.

2. Endangered Language Scholarship at the LSA Annual Meeting. For the last three years there have been regular (and in some cases also special) sessions on Field Reports/Endangered Languages. This year's program included one regular session and two special initiatives by LSA members: an organized session by Colleen Cotter and Sara Trechter on ethics in practical field work, and a tutorial by Dan Everett on monolingual field work. Megan Crowhurst and Sara Trechter have also undertaken the production of a CELP brochure highlighting committee activities and EL-related events at the meetings. It is important for LSA members to submit abstracts checking off the "Field Reports/Endangered Languages" box on the Abstract Submittal form. Those wishing to be involved further can:
* Make themselves available as FR/EL abstract referees for the Program Committee (let me know and I'll forward your name).
* Put together a colloquium or symposium for the next LSA meeting. Possible topics include:
o Language pedagogy in community settings
o Language shift/language ideology
o Field methods (Cf. Johanna Nichols' 1996 Chechen symposium)
o Showcase of newly discovered "exotic" phenomena

3. Database on Endangered Languages. Akira Yamamoto has conducted a survey of endangered language community populations and speaker populations, by world area and language, including numbers of remaining speakers and contact names of linguists. This is officially a project of CELP. Those wishing to assist or to provide data should contact Akira (akira@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu). There is a plan to put the survey put on the LSA's web site.

4. The Use of Linguistic Information in Community Settings. Bill Poser (poser@unbc.edu) has suggested that information and experience be assembled on how linguistic information of various kinds could be mobilized in community language preservation efforts. This includes the development of pedagogical materials from scientific grammars, dictionaries, and text collections, as well as the effective dissemination of scientific results on such topics as multilingualism (e.g., Knowing more than one language won't stunt a child's intellectual growth). This project may take a variety of forms, e.g., a clearing house, a web page, or just the preparation of a survey of relevant research which could be published in an appropriate scholarly periodical.

5. Development of a CELP Web Page. Needed here (at minimum) is an editor and a person with appropriate web page building skills. The page could be a part of the LSA's web page, or linked to it. It could give information on endangerment, as well as provide names and contact info on people who could speak knowledgeably to the press. Aside from this, Anthony Aristar and Helen Dry, moderators of LINGUIST, have been discussing using LINGUIST as a central clearinghouse for data sources for endangered languages (and a site through which one could access the data itself). They are planning to submit proposals to either NEH or the Carnegie Foundation or both to build such a database.

6. Clearinghouse of Indigenous Languages. CELP has made a commitment to cooperate with the Institute for the Preservation of the Indigenous Languages of the Americas in the building of a Clearinghouse of Indigenous Language Programs.

7. Disciplinary "Agitation". The issue is how well the discipline and its institutional practices support documentary linguistics and language preservation activities. The plan for a new "Field Reports" section in _Language_ is the latest welcome development on this front. Visibility at LSA annual meetings (item 2 above) must continue. But at the same time we need studies on such topics as:
* Field Methods teaching in linguistics departments (already raised by Paul Newman in his exemplary 1992 article, 'Fieldwork and field methods in linguistics' (California Linguistic Notes 23(2):1-8)).
* Survey career trajectories of students doing field work dissertations. What kinds of jobs both inside and outside of academic linguistics do they find? How do their prospects compare with those of students with analytic specialties (phonology, syntax, historical, socio, etc.)?
* Departmental receptivity to field work dissertations. Are grammars acceptable as dissertations? Dictionaries? Collections of texts?

TERRALINGUA: PARTNERSHIPS FOR LINGUISTIC AND BIOLOGICAL DIVERSITY: Terralingua has two basic purposes. First, to preserve the world's linguistic diversity in all its forms, regardless of political, demographic, or linguistic status. This means that we are concerned with the loss of any form of language, whether it be an endangered language, a disappearing dialect of a non-endangered language, declining bilingual use of a language (endangered or not) within a given country, and so forth. The emphasis is on diversity as a whole rather than endangerment, though of course we will necessarily be deeply involved in supporting the preservation and rejuvenation of critically endangered forms of language.

We also are convinced that attempts to preserve either linguistic or biological diversity will ultimately not succeed unless both are preserved that is, we believe in a holistic view of diversity in culture and nature. Thus, Terralingua's second basic purpose is to promote the investigation of the parallels and links between cultural diversity (of which linguistic diversity is an important part) and biological diversity. We want to build bridges between groups and individuals working to save languages and cultures and those working to save species and ecosystems.

Statement of Purpose

A. Terralingua recognizes:
1. That the diversity of languages and their variant forms is a vital part of the world's cultural diversity
2. That cultural diversity and biological diversity are not only related, but often inseparable and
3. That, like biological species, many languages and their variant forms around the world are now faced with an extinction crisis whose magnitude may well prove very large.

B. Terralingua declares:
4. That every language, along with its variant forms, is inherently valuable and therefore worthy of being preserved and perpetuated, regardless of its political, demographic, or linguistic status
5. That deciding which language to use, and for what purposes, is a basic human right inhering to members of the community of speakers now using the language or whose ancestors traditionally used it and
6. That such usage decisions should be freely made in an atmosphere of tolerance and reciprocal respect for cultural distinctiveness-a condition that is a prerequisite for increased mutual understanding among the world's peoples and a recognition of our common humanity.

C. Therefore, Terralingua sets forth the following goals:
7. To help preserve and perpetuate the world's linguistic diversity in all its variant forms (languages, dialects, pidgins, creoles, sign languages, languages used in rituals, etc.) through research, programs of public education, advocacy, and community support.
8. To learn about languages and the knowledge they embody from the communities of speakers themselves, to encourage partnerships between community-based language/cultural groups and scientific/professional organizations who are interested in preserving cultural and biological diversity, and to support the right of communities of speakers to language self-determination.
9. To illuminate the connections between cultural and biological diversity by establishing working relationships with scientific/professional organizations and individuals who are interested in preserving cultural diversity (such as linguists, educators, anthropologists, ethnologists, cultural workers, native advocates, cultural geographers, sociologists, and so on) and those who are interested in preserving biological diversity (such as biologists, botanists, ecologists, zoologists, physical geographers, ethnobiologists, ethnoecologists, conservationists, environmental advocates, natural resource managers, and so on), thus promoting the joint preservation and perpetuation of cultural and biological diversity.
10. To work with all appropriate entities in both the public and private sectors, and at all levels from the local to the international, to accomplish the foregoing.

This society has been set up on the initiative of David Harmon of the George Wright Society (gws@mail.portup.com). Address: Terralingua, P.O. Box 122, Hancock, Michigan 49930-0122 USA http://cougar.ucdavis.edu/nas/terralin/home.html

ENDANGERED-LANGUAGES-L ELECTRONIC FORUM This Forum was established on the 7 September 1994 on the joint initiative of the Coombs Computing Unit, Research Schools of Social Sciences and Pacific Studies, The Australian National University, and Dr Mari Rhydwen, Graduate School of Education, University of Western Australia, Nedlands, Perth, WA 6009, Australia, to provide a world-wide communications vehicle and a central electronic archive for anyone working on, or interested in, the study and documentation of endangered languages. The Forum is unmoderated and is open to all, subject to subscription approval by the List owner (Dr Mari Rhydwen mrhydwen@decel.ecel.uwa.edu.au).

Anyone, whether a registered member or not, can electronically view and retrieve the communications to the forum using the 'ANU-Endangered-Languages-L' database accessible with the standard WAIS software and through the ANU's COOMBSQUEST Social Sciences and Humanities Information Facility gopher running on the coombs.anu.edu.au machine.

Bibliographic information is always welcome and such contributions, if submitted, will be archived on in the Coombspapers Social Sciences Research Data Bank at ANU available by ftp/gopher/www access on the coombs.anu.edu.au system.

To join (subscribe to) the forum send e-mail to: majordomo@coombs.anu.edu.au with the message: subscribe Endangered-Languages-L your e-mail address [eg: subscribe Endangered-Languages-L xyz@abacus.abc.edu.au] DO NOT INCLUDE YOUR NAME OR ANY OTHER DETAILS AFTER THE ADDRESS (If in doubt how to interact with any of the coombs.anu.edu.au lists, send a message 'help' to: majordomo@coombs.anu.edu.au)
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Gopher access to the ANU-Endangered-Languages-L dbase:
Name=Search the "ANU-Endangered-Languages-L" database
Type=7
Port=70
Path=waissrc:/Coombs-db/ANU-Endangered-Languages-L.src
Host=cheops.anu.edu.au
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WWW access to the ANU-Endangered-Languages-L dbase:
gopher://cheops.anu.edu.au/7waisscrc%3a/Coombs-db/ANU-Endangered-Languages-L.scr
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NETWORK SUPPORT: Dr. Matthew T. Ciolek <tmciolek@coombs.anu.edu.au>

LANGUAGE SHIFT - NEW MAILING LIST: LG-SHIFT is an open, unmoderated forum hosted by The International Sociolinguistics Department of the Summer Institute of Linguistics (SIL) for all scholars interested in Language Shift and any and all phenomena closely related to it. It is their hope to gather together in lively interaction, linguists, sociolinguists, anthropologists, social psychologists, and any others who can contribute to and profit from the exchange of information. LG-SHIFT is run as an Internet mailing list. To subscribe, send an e-mail message to MAILSERV@SIL.ORG with "SUBSCRIBE LG-SHIFT" (without the quotes) only as the body of the message. You will receive a welcome file providing further details. For further information or questions contact Paul Lewis (Paul_Lewis@SIL.ORG), the current "list owner".

NAT-LANG: NAT-LANG (nat-lang@gnosys.svle.ma.us) is a list for information and discussion of the languages of aboriginal peoples, run by Gary S. Trujillo.

LDUL: LANGUAGE DOCUMENTATION URGENCY LIST: LDUL is an automatic mailbox and database set up by Dietmar Zaefferer (ue303bh@sunmail.lrz-muenchen.de) for the collection and retrieval of information on how urgently the individual languages of this world are in need of documentation. The aim is to help in the decision of where to focus fieldwork and in the writing of proposals for fund-raising purposes. The address for the mailbox is
ldul@cis.uni-muenchen.de
If you want to know more about LDUL, simply send a message to this address with "about LDUL" (without the quotes) in the "Subject" field (the message body may be empty, or, if your mail system doesn't tolerate this, contain anything, it will be ignored).

LOGOSPHERE: This is a long-term collaborative project initiated by David Dalby, ex-director of the African Studies Unit at SOAS, in which geographers and linguists use sophisticated statistical methods to produce linguistic profiles of regions of the world. Large or small regions can be pinpointed. Information at various levels of specificity can be represented. The data is drawn from many sources, including censuses and field-workers' reports. The data-base can be interrogated in various ways it can represent the geographical distribution of speakers of a given language, the number of multilingual inhabitants of a town, dialectal variations within a given language, etc., and it can relate languages spoken in a region to other economic, demographic and ecological variables. Logosphere is a potential source of the most up-to-date and reliable data, which is the crucially necessary basis for conservationist claims and arguments.

NATIONAL FOREIGN LANGUAGE RESOURCE CENTER
University of Hawai'i, East-West Road, Bldg 1, Rm 6A, Honolulu HI 96822
e-mail: nflrc@hawaii.edu voice: (808) 956-9424, fax: (808) 956-5983
web: http://www.lll.hawaii.edu/nflrc
Under a grant from the U.S. Department of Education, the National Foreign Language Resource Center at the University of Hawai'i has since 1990 served as one of a small number of resource centers established to improve and enrich foreign language education nationwide. The Center engages in research and materials development projects, conducts summer institutes for language professionals, and publishes research reports and teaching materials. They recently hosted a symposium on New Technologies and Less Commonly Taught Languages.

OTHER WEB SITES OF INTEREST:
List of descriptive grammars already published by LINCOM EUROPA or in preparation. Among these ca. 200 titles are several on endangered languages:
http://home.t-online.de/home/LINCOM.EUROPA/lwm.htm. Further information and a call for contributions and can be seen at http://home.t-online.de/home/LINCOM.EUROPA/style1.htm.

The MIT Working Papers in Linguistics Endangered Languages Bibliography. This is the most comprehensive source list on endangered languages available. The complete text is available at http://cougar.ucdavis.edu/nas/terralin/elbiblio.html (File size: 150k). Appended to this list is a bibliography on attitudes towards language.

Terralingua Internet Resources on Language Endangerment, Survival, and Revitalization: http://cougar.ucdavis.edu/nas/terralin/endlangs.html

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and the Universal Declaration of Linguistic rights, are available in a number of languages at: http://www.indigo.ie/egt/udhr/udhr.html and http://www.indigo.ie/egt/udhr/udlr.html.

CARLA: Less Commonly Taught Languages: http://carla.acad.umn.edu/lctl/lctl.html

Centre for Theories of Language and Learning, University of Bristol, UK: http://www.bris.ac.uk/Depts/Philosophy/CTLL/

The Human-Languages Page: http://www.june29.com/HLP/

List Endangered-Languages-L: Web sites: http://carmen.murdoch.edu.au/lists/endangered-languages-l/ell-websites.html

The Akha Heritage Foundation: http://thailine.com/akha/

AVG Summary: Query on Language Description and Field Work: http://www.cip.fak14.uni-muenchen.de/~avg/working_papers/authors_sum.html

Ethnologue: http://www.sil.org/ethnologue/

Arbeitsgruppe 'Bedrohte Sprachen' der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Sprachwissenschaft: http://www.uni-koeln.de/phil-fak/ifs/pages/d_agbs.htm

National Clearinghouse for Bilingual Education: http://www.ncbe.gwu.edu/

University of California Linguistic Minority Research Institute: http://lmrinet.gse.ucsb.edu/

Association for Linguistic Typology: http://148.88.14.7:80/alt/

WEB SITES ON AMERICAN LANGUAGES
For languages of the Americas, good sources are the (very frequent) electronic SSILA Bulletin, and the (postally distributed) SSILA Newsletter, issued to members of the Society for the Study of Indigenous Languages of the Americas by Victor Golla <gollav@axe.humboldt.edu>, Native American Studies, Dept. of Anthropology, Humboldt State Univ. Arcata, CA 95521 USA. Check out also the SSILA Web site at the University of California at Davis: http://cougar.ucdavis.edu/nas/SSILA/

A pretty good compact history of the Abenaki is at http://www.pobox.com/~jsd/aben.html

The Mahican is at http://www.pobox.com/~jsd/Mahican.html

First Nations/First Peoples Issues (4 Star Magellan site):
http://www.pobox.com/~jsd/firstnations.html

Wounded Knee Home Page: http://www.pobox.com/~jsd/WKmasscre.html

Native American Language Resources on the Internet: http://hanksville.phast.umass.edu/misc/indices/NAlanguage.html

Living Languages Of The Americas: This is a new resource on SIL's Web site--an on-line version of a book of the same name published by SIL (1995). It combines information from the Ethnologue and the SIL Bibliography for all the languages in the Americas. The Web address is: http://www.sil.org/lla/. The book itself was originally intended for distribution to OAS member states for public relations purposes. Paper copies can be ordered from: International Academic Bookstore, SIL, 7500 W. Camp Wisdom Road, Dallas, TX 75236 (fax: 214/709-2433 e-mail academic.books@sil.org).

SOME ENCOURAGING READINGS ON LANGUAGE MAINTENANCE:
NANCY DORIAN (DORIAN@HENRY.BOWDOIN.EDU) of Bryn Mawr College, Depts of German and Anthropology wrote in the LG-SHIFT mailing list on 22 November 1996:

The literature of language maintenance and language shift is a lot heavier on the shift end than on the maintenance end, as I expect everybody's well aware. For that reason I wanted to mention some literature that bears on the possibilities for maintenance, just to highlight it a bit.
• Roger Keesing, 1992, "Custom and confrontation: The Kwaio struggle for cultural autonomy" (U. of Chicago), details a case of determined retention of ancestral lifeways & language, but at tremendous cost to the people concerned.

Some less costly cases, then:
• Paul Kroskrity, 1993, "Language, history, & identity: Ethnolinguistic studies of the Arizona Tewa" (U. of Arizona).
• Juliana Flinn, 1992, "Diplomas & thatched houses: Asserting tradition in a changing Micronesia" (U. of Michigan).
• Asher Stern, 1990, 'Educational policy towards the Circassian minority in Israel', in Koen Jaspaert & Sjaak Kroon, "Ethnic minority lgs and education" (Swets & Zeitlinger, Amsterdam).
These cases are of interest because they involve indigenous peoples who've managed to retain their languages without major changes in their economic fortunes.

The next pair of cases involve peoples who've managed to turn sharply improving economic fortunes to their advantage:
• Rita Decime, 1994, 'Un projet de trilanguisme intégré pour les enfants des écoles maternelles de la Vallée d' Ayas', International Journal of the Sociology of Language 109 and
• Thomas Markey, 1988, 'Ladin and other relic language forms in the eastern Alpine region', in Jacek Fisiak, "Historical Dialectology" (Mouton de Gruyter, Berlin).

At the economically very high end:
• Kathryn Woolard & Tae Joong Gahng, 1990, 'Changing lg policies and attitudes in autonomous Catalonia, Language in Society 19.

And at the politically very high end:
• Per Langgaard, 1992, "Greenlandic is not an ideology, it is a language", in Nelson Graburn & Roy Iutzi-Mitchell, eds., "Language & educational policy in the North" (Berkeley Working Papers of the Canadian Studies Program, U. of California, Berkeley).

I should also mention:
• Leanne Hinton's paper, 'Survival of endangered languages: The California master-apprentice program' appeared in the first 1997 issue of the International Journal of the Sociology of Language, in the section on Small Languages & Small Language Communities. It's an excellent introduction to the program, since it doesn't assume any background in the languages involved and goes into a fair bit of detail about the teaching and learning methods used by masters and apprentices.

MULTILINGUAL COMPUTING - THE MAGAZINE OF LANGUAGE TECHNOLOGY: This is a new magazine that deals with, among other points, the problems of the localization of software products (rough definition 'putting everything associated with the program or the computer in a target language'). The cover price is $5.95(US) and it's published 6 times a year. The address is: Multilingual Computing, Inc., 111 Cedar St., Sandpoint, Idaho 83864 USA info@multilingual.com.

MITWPL PAPERS ON ENDANGERED LANGUAGES: Volume 28 of the MIT Working Papers in Linguistics is "Papers on Language Endangerment and the Maintenance of Linguistic Diversity". This volume, edited by Jonathan David Bobaljik, Rob Pensalfini, and Luciana Storto, grew out of a workshop series held at MIT in January 1995. The workshop placed a particular emphasis on the thorny question of 'what works in language maintenance?', and in addition to papers presented at the workshop the editors have collected papers from other authors recommended by presenters and a preliminary bibliography drawn from the extensive bibliographies provided by members of this list. The contents of the volume are:

• Introduction (general questions of endangerment and survival) - Jonathan Bobaljik & Rob Pensalfini
• Can Senior Secondary Studies Help to Maintain and Strengthen Indigenous Languages ? - Antonio Mercurio and Rob Amery
• The Ulwa language wakes up - Thomas Green
• A report on language endangerment in Brazil - Luciana Storto
• Modern Irish: A Case Study in Language Revival Failure - Andrew Carnie
• Explaining and Reversing the Failure of the Irish Language Revival - Peter Slomanson
• Universal grammar and the roots of linguistic diversity - Ken Hale
• Language Endangerment & the Non-indigenous Minority Languages in the UK - Mahendra K. Verma
• Policy Statement: the need for the documentation of linguistic diversity - Linguistic Society of America
• A Preliminary Bibliography on Language Endangerment and Preservation - Jonathan Bobaljik, Rob Pensalfini & Luciana Storto

The volume costs US$12 (+postage/handling of $2-$3 surface, $5-$12 air) and can be ordered from MIT Working Papers in linguistics by writing to them at MITWPL, MIT Room 20D-219, Cambridge MA02139, USA or by sending email to MITWPL@MIT.EDU.

NOTE ON FINDING BOOKS ON EL'S: It is possible to search for just about any book in print (and many many out of print books too) easily on the bookseller amazon.com's website (www.amazon.com) and you can hunt down titles on given languages easily enough. You can also find many references using the online catalog of Widener Library at Harvard, since their holdings are so extensive.