forgetting language: language change and language death as cases of forgetting

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Forgetting LanguageLanguage change and Language death

as cases of forgetting

Ariel Gutman

Konstanz University

29 October 2012

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Language as memory

Language is a mirror in which the whole spiritualdevelopment of mankind reflects itself.

Klein, A comprehensive etymological dictionary of the Englishlanguage, p. x

Everything forgets. But not language. [...] inhistory, it is language that has been the vessel ofhuman grace and the prime carrier of civilization.

Steiner, Language and Silence, p. 108–9

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Outline of the talk

The talk is divided into 3 parts:

Language change as forgetting

Language loss as severe forgetting

Language archiving as a counter-measure to forgetting

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I A truism: languages change constantly.

I As language represents “cultural memory”, whenever alanguage changes something is forgotten.

I A stronger claim:The driving force behind language change is forgetting.

I NB: forgetting = complete erasure of information.

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I A truism: languages change constantly.I As language represents “cultural memory”, whenever alanguage changes something is forgotten.

I A stronger claim:The driving force behind language change is forgetting.

I NB: forgetting = complete erasure of information.

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Language change as community-level forgetting

The central dogma of sociolinguistics is that thecommunity is prior to the individual. [...] the behaviourof an individual can be understood only through thestudy of the social groups of which he or she is amember. [...] language is seen as an abstract patternlocated in the speech community and exterior to theindividual.

(Labov, Cognitive and Cultural Factors, p. 7)

In order for a language to change, there is no need forindividual forgetting of language (although this is possible).Rather, the transmission of the linguistic system is hampered,leading to “cultural forgetting”.

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A textbook example

mouse mice foot feetProto-Germanic muːs muːs-i foːt foːt-iUmlaut muːs myːs-i foːt føːt-iLoss of -i muːs myːs foːt føːtUnrounding muːs miːs foːt feːtVowel shift maus mais fuːt fiːt

(Adapted from Campbell, Historical Linguistics, p. 23)

The emergence of the vocalic change (Umlaut) as a marker ofthe plural was possible only due to the forgetting of the /i/marker.

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A textbook example

mouse mice foot feetProto-Germanic muːs muːs-i foːt foːt-iUmlaut muːs myːs-i foːt føːt-iLoss of -i muːs myːs foːt føːtUnrounding muːs miːs foːt feːtVowel shift maus mais fuːt fiːt

(Adapted from Campbell, Historical Linguistics, p. 23)The emergence of the vocalic change (Umlaut) as a marker ofthe plural was possible only due to the forgetting of the /i/marker.

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A Modern Aramaic example

In old Aramaic a noun modified by another noun appears in aspecial short form called Construct State.

(1) bethouse.cst

malkaking

“House of the king.” (Syriac, 3rd century)

In some dialects of modern Aramaic, this form has beenforgotten (or more precisely, highly restricted):

(2) belahouse

barux-ifriend-1sg

“The house of my friend.” (Jewish SanandajNeo-Aramaic, cited from Khan, The JewishNeo-Aramaic Dialect of Sanandaj, p. 199).

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A Modern Aramaic example (contd.)

This has led to a borrowing of an Iranian Ezafe marker of theNoun-Noun relation:

(3) bela-ehouse-ez

barux-ifriend-1sg

“The house of my friend” (Khan, The JewishNeo-Aramaic Dialect of Sanandaj, p. 199)

The borrowing of the marker was facilitated by the forgetting ofthe inherited Semitic marker (i.e. the construct state).

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In more general terms...

I Languages (and speakers) prefer unique (one-to-one)form-function couplings (= linguistic signs).

I Whenever one function is coupled with several forms, oneof these couplings will be weekend and eventually one ofthe forms will fall in disuse, or reassigned to anotherfunction.

I Alternatively, when one form is coupled with severalfunctions, either one of the functions will disappear, or itwill be reassigned to another form.

I The disassociation of a form-meaning coupling which is inthe core of the linguistic change.

I Disassociation = Forgetting.

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Language loss

I Language loss: a process wherein a language ceases tobe spoken and transmitted as a first language.

I Also referred to as language death or language shift.I We can call it language forgetting.I The language is forgotten not (only) by the individualspeakers but rather by a community, which thereby alsoloses part of its cultural wealth.

I It is estimated that by the end of the century, 50%-90%(!)of the world’s languages will cease to be spoken (Austinand Sallabank, The Cambridge Handbook of EndangeredLanguages, p. 2).

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Language loss


I Also referred to as language death or language shift.

I We can call it language forgetting.I The language is forgotten not (only) by the individualspeakers but rather by a community, which thereby alsoloses part of its cultural wealth.


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Language loss


I Also referred to as language death or language shift.I We can call it language forgetting.

I The language is forgotten not (only) by the individualspeakers but rather by a community, which thereby alsoloses part of its cultural wealth.


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Language loss


I Also referred to as language death or language shift.I We can call it language forgetting.I The language is forgotten not (only) by the individualspeakers but rather by a community, which thereby alsoloses part of its cultural wealth.


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Language loss

Sudden language loss (=extermination of the speakingcommunity by disease, war or genocide) is quite uncommon.Rather, language loss is a gradual process, spanning typicallysome generations of speakers (Grenoble, “Language ecologyand endangerment”, p. 32).The interim stages of these process typically include :

I Loss of fluency of individual speakers (language attrition).I Emergence of Semi-Speakers: “members of thecommunity with appropriate receptive skills [...] but varyinglevels of productive skills.” (Grinevald and Bert, “Speakersand communities”, p. 50).

I Loss of domains of speech (restriction of the language to ahome-setting, liturgical setting, etc.).

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George Rizkalla, speaker of Western Neo-Aramaic fromMa’alula, Syria, in a report of the Los Angeles Times, 29 March1997:

Fifty years ago, all the students in Malula spokeAramaic, and some of them could speak Arabic withdifficulty. Now, all speak Arabic, and some strugglewith the Aramaic. [... In Damascus, my children]cannot see goats, or trees or peasants working in thefield. So all the words for these things are forgottenbecause they hear such words maybe once a year. Inthis way the language gets poorer and poorer.

(cited in Crystal, Language Death, p. 25)

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Forgotten but not lost: The Archive

In the dinner speech of Forgetting I workshop, Aleida Assmannspoke about the Archive as a special kind of forgetting, in whichthe “forgotten” data rests accessible to future (curious)generations.

In linguistics, this view has taken an active turn, in that much ofthe current “language documentation” activity is aiming atcreating “digital archives” of endangered languages (See forexample Conathan, “Archiving and language documentation”;Nathan, “Digital Archiving”).

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A language archiveIn the strict sense, a language archive is a depository wheredata collected during language documentation work ispreserved.

I Audio recordingI TranscriptionsI Field notesI Grammatical descriptions

Some examples:I Semitisches Tonarchiv

http://www.semarch.uni-hd.de/index.php43?lang=enI The Endangered Language Archive

http://www.elar-archive.org/I The Open Language Archives Community

http://www.language-archives.org/

http://www.semarch.uni-hd.de/index.php43?lang=en

http://www.elar-archive.org/

http://www.language-archives.org/

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A broader view

I Any historical written record of a language can be seen asan “Archive.”Example: Akkadian clay tablets

I Some “dead” languages are continued to be used inrestricted (notably religious or scholarly ) domains by L2speakers. This can be seen as a “living archive”.Examples: Syriac, Latin

I The existence of an archive gives hope that a languagemay be revitalized, but is this realistic?

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From the archive, back from the dead?I Modern Hebrew is typically given as the example of asuccessful language revitalization. This was possiblysince:

I There were written records of Hebrew throughout the ages.I There was a continuous L2 tradition of using Hebrew as aliturgical language.

I There is a recent debate as to the continuity between olderHebrew and Modern Hebrew (for instance Zuckermann,“Hybridity versus revivability: multiple causation, forms andpatterns”).

I A less known example is the Kaurna language, whose lastspeaker died in 1927. The language was extensivelydescribed beforehand, and in the last decades it has beenreintroduced into daily life by members of the Kaurnacommunity (Wurm, “The language situation and languageendangerement in the Greater Pacific area”, p. 44).

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I There were written records of Hebrew throughout the ages.

I There was a continuous L2 tradition of using Hebrew as aliturgical language.



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I There were written records of Hebrew throughout the ages.I There was a continuous L2 tradition of using Hebrew as aliturgical language.



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Conclusions

I If Language is a form of cultural memory, its change canbe considered as cultural forgetting.

I Forgetting is one of the driving forces behind linguisticchange, if not the main one.

I “Too much” forgetting leads to language loss.I One of the roles of linguists have taken is to counterforgetting by establishing linguistic archives.

Thank you!

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Conclusions



I “Too much” forgetting leads to language loss.

I One of the roles of linguists have taken is to counterforgetting by establishing linguistic archives.

Thank you!

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Conclusions



I “Too much” forgetting leads to language loss.I One of the roles of linguists have taken is to counterforgetting by establishing linguistic archives.

Thank you!

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References I

Austin, Peter K. and Julia Sallabank, eds. The CambridgeHandbook of Endangered Languages. Cambridge Handbooksin Language and Linguistics. Cambridge University Press,2011.Campbell, Lyle. Historical Linguistics. An Introduction. 2nd ed.Edinburgh University Press, 2004.Conathan, Lisa. “Archiving and language documentation”. In:The Cambridge Handbook of Endangered Languages. Ed. byPeter K. Austin and Julia Sallabank. Cambridge Handbooks inLanguage and Linguistics. Cambridge University Press, 2011.Chap. 12, pp. 235–254.Crystal, David. Language Death. Cambridge University Press,2000.

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References II

Grenoble, Lenore A. “Language ecology and endangerment”.In: The Cambridge Handbook of Endangered Languages.Ed. by Peter K. Austin and Julia Sallabank. CambridgeHandbooks in Language and Linguistics. Cambridge UniversityPress, 2011. Chap. 2, pp. 27–44.Grinevald, Collete and Michel Bert. “Speakers andcommunities”. In: The Cambridge Handbook of EndangeredLanguages. Ed. by Peter K. Austin and Julia Sallabank.Cambridge Handbooks in Language and Linguistics.Cambridge University Press, 2011. Chap. 3, pp. 45–67.Janse, Mark and Sijmen Tol, eds. Language Death andLanguage Maintenance: Theoretical, Practical and DescriptiveApproaches. Amsterdam studies in the theory and history oflinguistic science: Current issues in linguistic theory. JohnBenjamins Pub., 2003.

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References IIIKhan, Geoffrey. The Jewish Neo-Aramaic Dialect of Sanandaj.Gorgias Neo-Aramaic Studies 10. Piscataway: Gorgias Press,2009.Klein, Ernst. A comprehensive etymological dictionary of theEnglish language. Dealing with the origin of words and theirsense development thus illustrating the history of civilizationand culture. Elsevier Pub. Co., 1971.Labov, William. Principles of Linguistic Change. Vol. 3:Cognitive and Cultural Factors. Language in Society 39.Wiley-Blackwell, 2012.Nathan, David. “Digital Archiving”. In: The CambridgeHandbook of Endangered Languages. Ed. by Peter K. Austinand Julia Sallabank. Cambridge Handbooks in Language andLinguistics. Cambridge University Press, 2011. Chap. 13,pp. 255–274.Steiner, George. Language and Silence. Essays on Language,Literature, and the Inhuman. Yale University Press, 1998.

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References IV

Wurm, Stephen A. “The language situation and languageendangerement in the Greater Pacific area”. In: LanguageDeath and Language Maintenance: Theoretical, Practical andDescriptive Approaches. Ed. by Mark Janse and Sijmen Tol.Amsterdam studies in the theory and history of linguisticscience: Current issues in linguistic theory. John BenjaminsPub., 2003, pp. 49–80.Zuckermann, Ghil’ad. “Hybridity versus revivability: multiplecausation, forms and patterns”. In: Journal of LanguageContact Varia 2 (2009), pp. 39–67.

forgetting language: language change and language death as cases of forgetting

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