Many of the world s 7000 documented language groups are endangered due to falling rates of language and culture transmission from one generation to the next. Some endangered language groups have been the focus of efforts to reverse patterns of linguistic and cultural loss, with variable success. This book presents case studies of endangered language groups from Africa, the Americas, Asia, Europe and the Pacific (including Bisu, Iban, Iquito, Quechua, Wawa, Yi and sign languages) and of their associated knowledge and belief systems, to highlight the importance of preserving linguistic...

Bringing a sociologist's insight to legal institutions and narratives, this book is an innovative and timely sociological contribution to current concerns regarding critical cosmopolitanism, human rights and crimes against humanity.

This volume reports on programs to revitalize and maintain languages of Thailand, with a particular focus on small enclave languages and school-based revitalization programs. Issues of language status, cultural heritage and identity are explored. The approximately 70 languages of Thailand belong to five language families: Tai (24), Austroasiatic (23), Austronesian (3), Sino-Tibetan (18) and Hmong-Mien (2). Currently, fifteen of these languages are classified as seriously endangered. This volume discusses language revitalization efforts involving six Mon-Khmer groups (Maniq, Chong, Nyah Kur,...

Reflecting current understanding of vocabulary as a multifaceted construct, this edited volume presents a collection of qualitative and quantitative studies which shed light on key theoretical concepts associated with learning and using vocabulary in second language contexts. Themes explored in the volume include the concept of partial vocabulary knowledge, the relationship between reading ability and vocabulary knowledge, the specialised vocabulary of high school science, morphological and orthographical components of word learning, the impact of word aspects on difficulty of learning, the...