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Linguistic Typology

Álvaro García Conde

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Transcript

MAIN SOURCES FOR LANGUAGE DOCUMENTATION

LINGUISTIC TYPOLOGYÁlvaro García Conde 2025

INDEX

  1. AN APPROACH TO LANGUAGE DOCUMENTATION
  2. ORIGINS OF THE CLASSIFICATIONS OF LANGUAGES
  3. CURRENT LANGUAGE CATALOGUES
  4. CLARIAH-ES
  5. ENDANGERED LANGUAGES, LINGUISTIC PREJUDICES AND THE FUTURE OF LANGUAGE DOCUMENTATION
  6. CONCLUSION

1. AN APPROACH TO LANGUAGE DOCUMENTATION

  • "A language documentation is a lasting, multipurpose record of a language"
  • Record of a language?
  • Multipurpose documentation?
  • Lasting?
  • The goal is not a short-term record for a specific purpose or interest group, but a record for generations and user groups whose identity is still unknown and who may want to explore questions not yet raised at the time when the language documentation was compiled

Gippert, Himmelmann & Mosel (2006)

1. WHAT IS A LANGUAGE DOCUMENTATION GOOD FOR?

  • From a linguistic point of view, there are essentially three reasons for engaging in language documentation:
    • The language endangerment
    • The economy of research resources
    • The accountability

Gippert, Himmelmann & Mosel (2006)

2. ORIGINS OF THE CLASSIFICATION OF LANGUAGES

  • The beginning is related to Hervás y Panduro, whose huge work was published between 1800 and 1805 (Catálogo de las lenguas de las naciones conocidas, y numeración, división, y clases de éstas según la diversidad de sus idiomas y dialectos)
  • The major developments in the field of language classification took place during the XIX and XX centuries

2. ORIGINS OF THE CLASSIFICATION OF LANGUAGES

  • For the first time in the history of linguistic classification, Moreno Cabrera (2003) applied the same classification scheme to all language families. This homogenisation, based on modern research, facilitates consultation and removes the chaos and heterogeneity of old catalogues
  • The case of Castilian

3. CURRENT LANGUAGES CATALOGUES: WALS

  • The most authoritative language catalogue currently available in an online version is called WALS (World Atlas of Language Structures), which is a large database of structural properties of languages compiled from descriptive materials by a team of 55 authors

3. CURRENT LANGUAGES CATALOGUES: GLOTTOLOG

  • One of the most comprehensive linguistic catalogues of all language families and dialects has a special focus on the lesser-known ones

3. CURRENT LANGUAGES CATALOGUES: UNIVERSAL DEPENDENCIES

  • A framework for consistent annotation of grammar across different human languages
  • Although it takes the WALS data, this catalogue goes further and includes a treebank that can be used for linguistic annotation

3. CURRENT LANGUAGES CATALOGUES: SIL

  • There are also some organisations that defend and promote the study of endangered languages, although they often do so for religious purposes
  • SIL (Summer Institute of Linguistics) is a global, faith-based nonprofit that works with local communities around the world to develop language solutions that expand possibilities for a better life
  • Ethnologue

3. CURRENT LANGUAGES CATALOGUES: RESEARCH GROUPS

  • ALDELIM (CIESAST-Southeast)
  • ALTYA (UJA)

NOW, IT IS YOUR TURN...

4. CLARIAH-ES

5. ENDANGERED LANGUAGES, LINGUISTIC PREJUDICES AND THE FUTURE OF LANGUAGE DOCUMENTATION

  • Austin and Sallabank (2011: 27) stated that there are between 6000 and 7000 known languages in the world, and linguists estimate that between 50% and 90% will disappear during this century

5. ENDANGERED LANGUAGES, LINGUISTIC PREJUDICES AND THE FUTURE OF LANGUAGE DOCUMENTATION

  • The primary cause for language loss is language shift
  • Austin and Sallabank (2011: 33) added that the causes of language shift are the imbalances in prestige and power between the minority (or threatened) language and culture on the one hand, and the language of wider communication and more dominant culture on the other

5. ENDANGERED LANGUAGES, LINGUISTIC PREJUDICES AND THE FUTURE OF LANGUAGE DOCUMENTATION

  • Addressing the future of endangered languages, Austin and Sallabank (2011: 446-447) recalled that the majority of the world’s endangered languages survive in societies and speech communities that are multilingual and often peripheral, where they fight for survival amongst most significant languages
  • In that sense, the advantages of endangered language media and pop-culture presence are many (television presence, rock musicians or text messaging)

5. ENDANGERED LANGUAGES, LINGUISTIC PREJUDICES AND THE FUTURE OF LANGUAGE DOCUMENTATION

Warumpi Band in Australia is a sample of Aboriginal rock music

5. ENDANGERED LANGUAGES, LINGUISTIC PREJUDICES AND THE FUTURE OF LANGUAGE DOCUMENTATION

  • There are many prejudices about Creole languages, such as saying that these languages are impoverished and corrupted versions of European languages (English or French) or the idea that Creoles rely on gestural language and intonation (which is true of all languages), as well as having simplified pronunciation and no demanding syntactic rules

6. CONCLUSION

  • Language documentation is a more than necessary task, but, as researcher Carmen Conti said, it is a complex practice whose main objectives are to collect, represent, analyze and preserve in a lasting format linguistic units obtained at first hand
  • It is a moral obligation to preserve the world's languages because all of them are part of the Intangible Heritage of Humanity according to UNESCO
  • Languages are fundamental means of transmitting the planet's cultural diversity. Now that technology allows us to do so, thanks to all the tools described above, linguists have the task of continuing to contribute to the scientific knowledge of the world's diverse languages

7. REFERENCES

Austin, P. K. & Sallabank, J. [eds.] (2011). The Cambridge Handbook of Endangered Languages. Cambridge University Press Centro de Documentación del Tseltal (n.d.). ALDELIM (Albergue de Documentación en Línea para Idiomas Mesoamericanos). (Available online at https://documentaciontseltal.aldelim.org/documentacion.html, Accessed on 2025-04-09) CLARIAH-ES (n.d.). European Research Infrastructure Consortia CLARIN and DARIAH. (Available online at https://www.clariah.es/en, Accessed on 2025-04-22)

7. REFERENCES

Conti Jiménez, C., Felíu Arquiola, E., Fernández García, F. & Torres Martínez, M. (2012). Catálogo de lenguas y censo lingüístico de la población extranjera estable en la ciudad de Jaén. (Available online at https://www4.ujaen.es/~fcofer/catalen/index.html, Accessed on 2025-04-09) Dryer, M.S. & Haspelmath, M. [eds.] (2013). WALS Online (v2020.4) [Data set]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.13950591 (Available online at https://wals.info, Accessed on 2025-04-09) Ethnologue (2023). SIL Global (Summer Institute of Linguistics). (Available online at https://www.sil.org/resources/publications/ethnologue, Accessed on 2025-04-09)

7. REFERENCES

Gippert, J., Himmelmann, N. & Mosel, U. (2006). Essentials of Language Documentation. De Gruyter Mouton Grenoble, L.A. & Whaley L.J. (2006). Saving languages: An Introduction to Language Revitalization. Cambridge University Press Hammarström, H., Forkel, R., Haspelmath, M. & Bank, S. (2024). Glottolog 5.1. Leipzig: Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.14006617 (Available online at http://glottolog.org, Accessed on 2025-04-09)

7. REFERENCES

Moreno Cabrera, J.C. (2003). El universo de las lenguas: clasificación, denominación, situación, tipología, historia y bibliografía de las lenguas. Castalia Zeman, D. (2024). Universal Dependencies 2.15. LINDAT/CLARIAH-CZ digital library at the Institute of Formal and Applied Linguistics (ÚFAL), Faculty of Mathematics and Physics, Charles University, http://hdl.handle.net/11234/1-5787 (Available online at https://universaldependencies.org/#language-, Accessed on 2025-04-09)

THANKS FOR YOUR ATTENTION

DO YOU HAVE ANY QUESTION?

2. ORIGINS OF THE CLASSIFICATION OF LANGUAGESMoreno Cabrera (2003: 13) and the case of Castilian

UNESCO PARAMETERS TO BE USED IN DETERMINING LANGUAGE ENDANGERMENT

  • Intergenerational transmission
  • Absolute number of speakers
  • Proportion of speakers within the total population
  • Trends in existing language domains
  • Response to new domains and media

UNESCO PARAMETERS TO BE USED IN DETERMINING LANGUAGE ENDANGERMENT

  • Materials for language education and literacy
  • Governmental and institutional attitudes and policies, including official status and use
  • Community members’ attitudes toward their own language and the amount and the quality of documentation

PARAMETERS TO BE USED IN DETERMINING LANGUAGE ENDANGERMENT

There are also some scales for evaluating language endangerment. In this work, we have selected one of the most modern (Grenoble and Whaley [2006: 18]), although there are others such as the one proposed by Krauss (1997)

PARAMETERS TO BE USED IN DETERMINING LANGUAGE ENDANGERMENT

SAFE All generations use the language in all or nearly all domains, and the language usually has official status. So it functions as the language of government, education and commerce (e.g. Greek in Greece)

PARAMETERS TO BE USED IN DETERMINING LANGUAGE ENDANGERMENT

AT RISKThe language may be used in limited domains or have a smaller number of speakers than other languages in the same region (e.g. Burak in Nigeria)

PARAMETERS TO BE USED IN DETERMINING LANGUAGE ENDANGERMENT

DISAPPEARING A language is disappearing when there is an observable shift towards another language in the communities where it is spoken (e.g. Lamba in Zambia)

PARAMETERS TO BE USED IN DETERMINING LANGUAGE ENDANGERMENT

MORIBUND The language is not longer transmitted to children (e.g. Ayapa Zoque in Mexico)

PARAMETERS TO BE USED IN DETERMINING LANGUAGE ENDANGERMENT

NEARLY EXTINCT Only a handful of speakers of the oldest generation remain (e.g. Liki or Moar in Indonesia)

PARAMETERS TO BE USED IN DETERMINING LANGUAGE ENDANGERMENT

EXTINCT No remaining speakers (e.g. Mozarabic in Al-Andalus)