Vanishing Voices: The Extinction of the World's Languages
Creating an explicit link between ecological and linguistic vitality, Nettle (Ph.D., anthropology, University Coll., London) and Romaine (English language, Oxford Univ.) persuasively present the scientific value of saving endangered languages. Anecdotes, statistics, and graphs help address significant assumptions about why languages die and how a few languages have achieved world dominance. The authors provide useful background information and tackle underlying issues, some of which spurred another recent publication, Stephen G. Alter's Darwinism and the Linguistic Image (Johns Hopkins Univ., 1999). Among other books that offer detailed examinations of threatened languages are Endangered Languages, edited by Lenora Grenoble and Lindsay Whaley (Cambridge Univ., 1998), and Robert M.W. Dixon's The Rise and Fall of Languages (Cambridge Univ., 1998). Highlighting the wealth of scientific knowledge encoded in threatened languages, the authors promote not only bi- or multilingualism but also the economic and ecological benefits of cooperating with endangered language speakers. Recommended for academic and large public libraries.DMarianne Orme, West Lafayette, INCopyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.--This text refers to theHardcoveredition.