How can a language with 7 million speakers be endangered?
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Heid Orcutt-Gachiri
Abstract
The stable trilingualism characteristic of older Kenyans is not shared by many young Kenyans. The shift away from Kenyan indigenous languages is affecting even large languages such as Gĩkũyũ. Where other scholars have been dismissive, claiming there is no threat to Gĩkũyũ, Jane Hill has strongly supported this research and has noted that the case of Gĩkũyũ shows the prescience of Krauss’s (1992) point that the only safe languages are those that have institutional support. Using Lieberson and McCabe’s (1982) domains of use in an analysis of Kenyan language ideologies in the discourses of nationalism, education, and development, I show how constellations of language repertoires that exclude indigenous languages have contributed to the striking shift to bilingualism among young Kenyans. Keywords: indigenous languages; language endangerment; languages of Kenya
Abstract
The stable trilingualism characteristic of older Kenyans is not shared by many young Kenyans. The shift away from Kenyan indigenous languages is affecting even large languages such as Gĩkũyũ. Where other scholars have been dismissive, claiming there is no threat to Gĩkũyũ, Jane Hill has strongly supported this research and has noted that the case of Gĩkũyũ shows the prescience of Krauss’s (1992) point that the only safe languages are those that have institutional support. Using Lieberson and McCabe’s (1982) domains of use in an analysis of Kenyan language ideologies in the discourses of nationalism, education, and development, I show how constellations of language repertoires that exclude indigenous languages have contributed to the striking shift to bilingualism among young Kenyans. Keywords: indigenous languages; language endangerment; languages of Kenya
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Foreword vii
- Preface xi
- Introduction xxi
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Section 1. Approaches to the study of the indigenous languages of the Americas
- The diachrony of Ute case-marking 3
- Language contact as an inhibitor of sound change 29
- Stress in Yucatec Maya 53
- The phonetic correlates of Southern Ute stress 85
- Revisiting Tohono O’odham high vowels 107
- Head-marking inflection and the architecture of grammatical theory 133
- A case-study in grass roots development of web resources for language workers 175
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Section 2. Approaches to the study of voices and ideologies
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Language contact, shift, and endangerment – implications for policy
- Spanish in contact with indigenous tongues 203
- How can a language with 7 million speakers be endangered? 229
- A documentary ethnography of a Blackfoot language course 257
- Syncretic speech, linguistic ideology, and intertextuality 291
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Racism in discourse – analyses of practice
- Narrative discriminations in Central California’s indigenous narrative traditions 321
- The voice of (White) reason 339
- Double-voicing in the everyday language of Brazilian black activism 365
- Uptake (un)limited 389
- The silken cord 415
- Afterword 425
- Language index 431
- Subject index 433
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Foreword vii
- Preface xi
- Introduction xxi
-
Section 1. Approaches to the study of the indigenous languages of the Americas
- The diachrony of Ute case-marking 3
- Language contact as an inhibitor of sound change 29
- Stress in Yucatec Maya 53
- The phonetic correlates of Southern Ute stress 85
- Revisiting Tohono O’odham high vowels 107
- Head-marking inflection and the architecture of grammatical theory 133
- A case-study in grass roots development of web resources for language workers 175
-
Section 2. Approaches to the study of voices and ideologies
-
Language contact, shift, and endangerment – implications for policy
- Spanish in contact with indigenous tongues 203
- How can a language with 7 million speakers be endangered? 229
- A documentary ethnography of a Blackfoot language course 257
- Syncretic speech, linguistic ideology, and intertextuality 291
-
Racism in discourse – analyses of practice
- Narrative discriminations in Central California’s indigenous narrative traditions 321
- The voice of (White) reason 339
- Double-voicing in the everyday language of Brazilian black activism 365
- Uptake (un)limited 389
- The silken cord 415
- Afterword 425
- Language index 431
- Subject index 433
