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This volume provides a collection of research reports on multilingualism and language contact ranging from Romance, to Germanic, Greco and Slavic languages in situations of contact and diaspora. Most of the contributions are empirically-oriented studies presenting first-hand data based on original fieldwork, and a few focus directly on the methodological issues in such research. Owing to the multifaceted nature of contact and diaspora phenomena (e.g. the intrinsic transnational essence of contact and diaspora, and the associated interplay between majority and minoritized languages and multilingual practices in different contact settings, contact-induced language change, and issues relating t...
Written by leading international scholars and activists, this guidebook provides ideas and strategies to support language revitalization.
This volume allows 13 besieged languages to tell their own stories by way of their consummate battles with languages that dominate their traditional spaces and ways of thinking. It tells of the value of these languages through linkages with the past and present and where continuation of this might further share those values with wider audiences beyond the current language users. As such, the book captures a discourse on the existence of minority languages in countries and states where they are under threat by the ‘Governing’ language.
The dictionary expands on the original idea of Karttunen and Lockhart to map the usage of loans in Nahuatl, by using a much larger and diversified corpus of sources, and by including contextual use, missing in earlier studies. Most importantly, these sources enrich the colonial corpus with modern data – significantly expanding on our knowledge on language continuity and change.
Volume 3 is devoted exclusively to B. Piłsudski's Ainu-related materials, for their most part previously unpublished. In addition, it comprises Piłsudski's research reports on his expeditions, a superb collection of fifty prayers in Ainu as well as texts and melodies recovered from Piłsudski's famous wax-cylinder recordings of Ainu-folklore of 1902-1903. The bibliographies printed in volume 1 are extensively enhanced. Abundant illustrative material is included.
This edited collection provides an overview of linguistic diversity, societal discourses and interaction between majorities and minorities in the Baltic States. It presents a wide range of methods and research paradigms including folk linguistics, discourse analysis, narrative analyses, code alternation, ethnographic observations, language learning motivation, languages in education and language acquisition. Grouped thematically, its chapters examine regional varieties and minority languages (Latgalian, Võro, urban dialects in Lithuania, Polish in Lithuania); the integration of the Russian language and its speakers; and the role of international languages like English in Baltic societies. T...
The volume is aimed at preserving invaluable knowledge about Ainu, a language-isolate previously spoken in Hokkaido, Sakhalin, and Kurils, which is now on the verge of extinction. Ainu was not a written language, but it possesses a huge documented stock of oral literature, yet is significantly under-described in terms of grammar. It is the only non-Japonic language of Japan and is typologically different not only from Japanese but also from other Northeast Asian languages. Revolving around but not confined to its head-marking and polysynthetic character, Ainu manifests many typologically interesting phenomena, related in particular to the combinability of various voice markers and noun incor...
Presenting a detailed examination of the origins, evolutions, and state-of-the-art of linguistic landscape research, The Bloomsbury Handbook of Linguistic Landscapes is a comprehensive guide to the burgeoning field of linguistic landscapes and the study of meaning and interpretation in public spaces and settings. Providing a thorough synopsis of the theories, methodologies, and objects of study which inflect linguistic landscape research across the world, this book is the ideal companion for both new and experienced readers interested in the processes of communication in public spaces across diverse settings and from a broad range of perspectives. Through a wide selection of case studies and...
Issues of language planning and minority nationalism or «micronationalism» are becoming increasingly important in a globalized world. Yet minority language planning in Italy and its relation to minority nationalism has so far attracted relatively limited academic attention, despite the particularly interesting changes that have taken place since Law 482 on the protection of minority languages was passed in 1999. This book presents the situation in Italy in three case studies and compares them with similar cases in Spain: Friulian (compared with Galician), Cimbrian (compared with Aranese) and Western Lombard (compared with Asturian). Analysis of these case studies is preceded by a clear and thorough introduction to terminology, legislation in the two countries, nationalism, the discipline of language planning and bilingual education, both in general terms and with specific reference to the Italian and Spanish cases. This first part introduces and defines the crucial distinction between minority and regional languages, between macro and micronationalism, both in their conservative and progressive strands, and between majority and minority language planning, among other things.