Endangered Languages of Austronesia - Hardcover

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0199544549 ISBN 13: 9780199544547

Publisher: OUP Oxford, 2009

Synopsis

Austronesian is the largest language family on earth: Some 1300 languages, 20% of the world's total, are spoken by 270 million people in a region that extends from Easter Island in the Pacific 10,000 miles west to Madagascar off the coast of Africa. Many of the languages in this diverse and linguistically rich region are undocumented and in imminent danger of extinction. This book provides a critical account of current knowledge, reviews the state of the documentation of languages in the region, and considers the linguistic effects of government policies and economic change. The editor's introduction draws out the key issues and themes. An overview of the Austronesian language family then examines the historical relations between the languages, their diversity, and their distribution in the region and describes the nature and aims of contemporary research. Individual chapters are then devoted to the revitalization of languages in Taiwan, the Philippines, Indonesia, Brunei, East Timor, and Vanuatu.

This pioneering account of one of the world's most linguistically rich regions offers direction and impetus to research in linguistics and anthropology, and holds out the means of saving many endangered languages and cultures.

About this title

About the Author

Margaret Florey is an experienced field linguist with endangered languages in eastern Indonesia. She is actively involved in advocacy and international capacity building activities with members of Indigenous communities. Her research interests include the minority languages of the Austronesian and Australian language families, language endangerment, language documentation, and ethnobiology. She has published extensively on the endangered languages of the Austronesian region. Margaret is a consultant linguist with Terralingua and serves on its Board of Governors, is a co-founder of the Resource Network for Linguistic Diversity, and chairs the steering committee for the International Conference on Austronesian Linguistics. Margaret has also contributed as an international expert at the UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage Section Experts' Meetings on the Convention on Intangible Cultural Heritage.

Edition details

• Publisher: OUP Oxford
• Publication date: 2009
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0199544549
• ISBN 13: 9780199544547
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 320
• Editor: Florey Margaret