Disappearing Languages                         http://www.commongroundradio.org/shows/04/0415.shtml#6 Time: 00.00 - 03.43

Prelistening

1. What do you understand by hard science and soft science?  Can you give examples of each?  What do the terms qualitative and quantitative mean?

2. Divide the following words into two groups and give them titles.

speaker                                                publish a study                                lead author        indigenous

interdisciplinary             fellowship                          monolingual     communicate                   PhD candidate

3. What is language death?  Can you name any dead or dying languages?

 

Listening

Listen to the recording and decide whether the following statements are true (T) or false -F).  Note down a few words to justify your decision.

1. There are around 6000 languages in the world and at least half may disappear.                         

2. The study by Danny Abrams and Steven Strogatz is unusual because it considers the social status of disappearing languages.                         

3. Abrams is a linguist who uses mathematical techniques to answer language-related questions. 

4. Abrams and Strogatz's study suggests that social status is an important factor in language death. 

5. Previous studies of social status were quantitative; this is the first qualitative one. 

6. Abrams and Strogatz are armchair linguists: they work on computers, not with real people.  

7. Quechua, the language of the Incas, is still spoken by millions of people in South America. 

8. Quechua is a healthy language at present, but it is nevertheless facing a very serious threat.  

9. Quechua is associated with a rural, oldfashioned lifestyle which is not popular with young people. 

10.  Many children can understand their Quechua-speaking grandparents but prefer to speak Spanish. 

11. It is hard for monolingual Quechua speakers to find work in South American cities. 

12. Educators want to revive Quechua by publishing and broadcasting in the language. 

 

Postlistening

Would you rather your child learned a locally-relevant or traditional minority language (Italian or Nissart in Nice) or a more prestigious international language such as English?  What factors would influence your choice?

Answers

1. There are around 6000 languages in the world and at least half may disappear.          T            

2. The study by Danny Abrams and Steven Strogatz is unusual because it considers the social status of disappearing languages.                          F

PORTER: Somewhere between 50 and 90 percent of the world's 6,000 languages are in danger of dying out, possibly with the current generation. A new study published in the journal Nature has found that the social status of a language may be the most important factor determining whether it will survive. The unusual thing is that this study, by Danny Abrams and Steven Strogatz from Cornell University, used math to study language. Judith Smelser asked lead author Danny Abrams why an applied mathematics Ph.D. candidate was dabbling in the field of linguistics.

3. Abrams is a linguist who uses mathematical techniques to answer language-related questions.  F

DANNY ABRAMS: I actually received a fellowship to do interdisciplinary work for my first two years, and this project is the result of that fellowship. I was looking for something that I could apply some quantitative techniques to that is normally maybe seen as a field, as a softer science such as linguistics.

4. Abrams and Strogatz's study suggests that social status is an important factor in language death.  T

JUDITH SMELSER: And through working with that different sort of medium, your study found a new leading cause of language death that hasn't been discussed very much in past studies, and that's the social status of the language. Tell me a little about what you mean by that and how it affects a language's ultimate fate.

5. Previous studies of social status were quantitative; this is the first qualitative one.  F

ABRAMS: The status of a language has been recognized before in the linguistics literature as an important factor in determining whether people will continue to speak that language, but it's always been discussed in the sense of case studies or in the sense of kind of a qualitative idea of what makes people want to speak a language. But the difference is in, my study is I think the first quantitative view of this concept.

6. Abrams and Strogatz are armchair linguists: they work on computers, not with real people.   F

7. Quechua, the language of the Incas, is still spoken by millions of people in South America.  T

SMELSER: And your study found that concept of status to be very important, I know. In fact you found that nearly every language in decline has a low social status. Now, you did some field research for this report too, I understand, in South America. What was that like—seeing your numbers and formulas playing out in real life?

ABRAMS: I did travel and collect some of my own data for one language, which is Quechua; it's called Quechua. It's the former language of the Incan empire. It's still spoken by about 10 million people throughout the Andes in South America, the Andes regions.

[The sound of a song sung in Quechua]

8. Quechua is a healthy language at present, but it is nevertheless facing a very serious threat.   T

9. Quechua is associated with a rural, oldfashioned lifestyle which is not popular with young people.  T

10.  Many children can understand their Quechua-speaking grandparents but prefer to speak Spanish.  F

ABRAMS: And I experienced first hand the sad sight of a language that is, that is on the verge of disappearance. Although Quechua is considered one of the most healthy indigenous languages of the Americas—it's the largest—it unfortunately is disappearing very quickly because children and young people are not learning it. They associate it with rural areas and with farmers and with an older lifestyle that they don't want to be a part of, and for that reason, all the adults in many of the cities in Peru and Bolivia and Ecuador can understand Quechua, but their children might not be able to, and it can be as extreme as the children not being able to even communicate with grandparents who are monolingual—grandparents that are monolingual in Quechua and grandchildren that are monolingual in Spanish.

SMELSER: Did you see evidence in South America of Quechua having a low social status, like your mathematical model would suggest? For example is it hard for Quechua speakers to get jobs there?

11. It is hard for monolingual Quechua speakers to find work in South American cities.  T

12. Educators want to revive Quechua by publishing and broadcasting in the language.  F

ABRAMS: I certainly think that, that's a big part of it. The truth is if a monolingual speaker of Quechua today really does not have any opportunity to at least find work in a city as a monolingual speaker of Quechua. Or there's very few opportunities, if there are any. Also, education is difficult to find in Quechua; there'a very few, there are a few programs that have been started recently, but it's difficult to find. And there's no, very few published books in Quechua, very few TV shows in Quechua, so I think all these things are indicators and possibly causes of the low prestige of the language.

 

Transcript

PORTER: Somewhere between 50 and 90 percent of the world's 6,000 languages are in danger of dying out, possibly with the current generation. A new study published in the journal Nature has found that the social status of a language may be the most important factor determining whether it will survive. The unusual thing is that this study, by Danny Abrams and Steven Strogatz from Cornell University, used math to study language. Judith Smelser asked lead author Danny Abrams why an applied mathematics Ph.D. candidate was dabbling in the field of linguistics.

DANNY ABRAMS: I actually received a fellowship to do interdisciplinary work for my first two years, and this project is the result of that fellowship. I was looking for something that I could apply some quantitative techniques to that is normally maybe seen as a field, as a softer science such as linguistics.

JUDITH SMELSER: And through working with that different sort of medium, your study found a new leading cause of language death that hasn't been discussed very much in past studies, and that's the social status of the language. Tell me a little about what you mean by that and how it affects a language's ultimate fate.

ABRAMS: The status of a language has been recognized before in the linguistics literature as an important factor in determining whether people will continue to speak that language, but it's always been discussed in the sense of case studies or in the sense of kind of a qualitative idea of what makes people want to speak a language. But the difference is in, my study is I think the first quantitative view of this concept.

SMELSER: And your study found that concept of status to be very important, I know. In fact you found that nearly every language in decline has a low social status. Now, you did some field research for this report too, I understand, in South America. What was that like—seeing your numbers and formulas playing out in real life?

ABRAMS: I did travel and collect some of my own data for one language, which is Quechua; it's called Quechua. It's the former language of the Incan empire. It's still spoken by about 10 million people throughout the Andes in South America, the Andes regions.

[The sound of a song sung in Quechua]

ABRAMS: And I experienced first hand the sad sight of a language that is, that is on the verge of disappearance. Although Quechua is considered one of the most healthy indigenous languages of the Americas—it's the largest—it unfortunately is disappearing very quickly because children and young people are not learning it. They associate it with rural areas and with farmers and with an older lifestyle that they don't want to be a part of, and for that reason, all the adults in many of the cities in Peru and Bolivia and Ecuador can understand Quechua, but their children might not be able to, and it can be as extreme as the children not being able to even communicate with grandparents who are monolingual—grandparents that are monolingual in Quechua and grandchildren that are monolingual in Spanish.

SMELSER: Did you see evidence in South America of Quechua having a low social status, like your mathematical model would suggest? For example is it hard for Quechua speakers to get jobs there?

ABRAMS: I certainly think that, that's a big part of it. The truth is if a monolingual speaker of Quechua today really does not have any opportunity to at least find work in a city as a monolingual speaker of Quechua. Or there's very few opportunities, if there are any. Also, education is difficult to find in Quechua; there'a very few, there are a few programs that have been started recently, but it's difficult to find. And there's no, very few published books in Quechua, very few TV shows in Quechua, so I think all these things are indicators and possibly causes of the low prestige of the language.