When Languages Die

"At our current rate of language loss, by the end of this century the vast majority of the world's languages will be either extinct or will be spoken by only a few old people. While much effort and money are now being spent to stem the loss of plant and animal species, the human tragedy of language loss is receiving little attention. This movingly written and fascinating book tells why languages are vanishing, and what we can do to save our linguistic heritage." --Jared Diamond, Professor of Geography, University of California, Los Angeles and Pulitzer prize winning author of Guns, Germs, and Steel "In this scholarly yet very readable study, Harrison writes powerfully of the value and beauty of these vanishing knowledge systems." --The Guardian Rich in details yet surprisingly easy to read, When Languages Die shows what we are losing. --Science Magazine "Depending on how one counts, it is likely that hald of the world's languages will be lost over the next thirty years, a dramatic change in human history. Harrison explores dying languages, how they differ from stable languages, how they encode cultural information that is lost with them, how their speakers behave, and much more. He tells a fascinating and tragic story of immense drama." --David W. Lightfoot, National Science Foundation "This important and useful book fills a valuable niche in what is now a voluminous and ever-growing collection of studies devoted to understanding reasons for and consequences of language death. Harrison's book focuses on the intellectual loss from the sum of human knowledge that such language death represents." --Journal of Anthropological Research "Harrison tackles the question of what is lost when a language dies from the vantage point of field studies with some of the few remaining speakers of endangered languages in Siberia, Mongolia, and elsewhere. When Languages Die reveals an astonishingly rich catalog of human intellectual heritage and scientific knowledge on the verge of disappearing as many of the world's small languages become extinct." --Suzanne Romaine, Oxford University "Written in clear and concise prose, When Languages Die provides a captivating account of how languages encode and categorize human knowledge and experience. Harrison brings together a wealth of examples from all over the world to illustrate just how very much is lost when a language ceases to be spoken. The book is a must-read for anyone interested in people and how we think, perceive, and understand the world we live in." --Lenore A. Grenoble, Dartmouth College "Depending on how one counts, it is likely that hald of the world's languages will be lost over the next thirty years, a dramatic change in human history. Harrison explores dying languages, how they differ from stable languages, how they encode cultural information that is lost with them, how their speakers behave, and much more. He tells a fascinating and tragic story of immense drama." --David W. Lightfoot, National Science Foundation "An important book with a clear niche in the teaching of undergraduates and in alerting a larger reading public to the magnitude and consequences associated with current trends in linguistic extinction. Harrison's book succeeds in representing the potential, even perhaps the inevitable, loss of the "intellectual treasure" of linguistic diversity." --Journal of Anthropological Research "The book is written for nonspecialists and is nontechnical in nature, making it a good, accessible read for nonlinguists or for those who know just a little about linguistics. Since it has been over two years since the book was first published, I can say with authority that it is widely used outside of the linguistic community by scholars in other disciplines who want examples of the impact of language shift. It does much to answer the question of what is lost when a language is lost, and the compendium of facts and anecdotes is not just lively and entertaining, but also provides good, quotable excerpts for those who want to tuck a bit into a larger argument about cultural shift."--Anthropological Linguistics