542 Language Maintenance and Shift
Language Maintenance and Shift
M Brenzinger, University of Cologne, Cologne,
Germany
ß 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
On the whole, the extent of endangerment of the
world’s language diversity reflects the distribution of
languages on our planet. The highest density of
endangered languages seems to exist in the linguisti-
cally heterogeneous parts of the world. It happens
that countries with very high numbers of languages
are near the equator, such as Papua New Guinea,
India, and Mexico, as well as the countries of central
and western Africa.
An analysis of language endangerment globally
shows that a crucial difference in language shift set-
tings seems to be between contexts of globalization,
nation-state contexts, and subnational contexts. In a
substantial part of the world, namely Australia, the
Americas, Europe, and Japan, minority languages are
increasingly under threat as they are replaced by the
official languages of nation-states. However, this does
not hold true for the vast majority of endangered
languages spoken elsewhere, for example on the
African continent. With about one-third of the
world’s languages, this continent is among the most
linguistically rich areas on our planet.
Language maintenance activities emerge in quite
different contexts and facets. Some French and
Afrikaners feel a pressing need for such supportive
measures even though their languages seem not to be
immediately threatened by extinction. In contrast,
speakers of endangered minority languages may re-
fuse to get involved in activities that aim to maintain
or revitalize the use of their ethnic tongue. Among
linguists, the stances toward language maintenance
also vary considerably. Some seem to want to work
toward a maintenance of the world’s linguistic di-
versity, which implies a challenge to either human
evolution or a creationist design. On the other ex-
treme, some linguists do not see it as their duty to
get professionally involved in language maintenance
activities. In the following account, language main-
tenance activities will be discussed with merely a
pragmatic focus, i.e., the options and roles for speech
communities, linguists, and international bodies such
as the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and
Cultural Organization (UNESCO).
Has there ever been a Homo sapiens sapiens proto-
language, which, some 100 000 or 200 000 years ago,
started a 12 000-year-long process of diffusing into
more than 100 000 languages, which have been
reduced from that number to the approximately
6000 languages spoken today? Whatever possible sce-
nario for language evolution one chooses to believe, it
seems certain that our present language inventory is
the remnant of a much richer pool. Furthermore, the
shrinking of linguistic diversity seems to have picked
up speed in the last few thousand years. This situation
is of immediate concern to many linguists and numer-
ous ethnolinguistic communities.
Terms like ‘language death,’ ‘language murder,’
‘language suicide,’ and ‘killer languages’ evoke pic-
tures in which languages themselves are alive or dead.
Languages are portrayed by these terms either as
suffering victims or as aggressive offenders, prior to
any scholarly analysis. We should keep in mind that
all spoken tongues are no more and no less than
variations of human language. Groups of people
may foster or give up an ethnic language, the latter
having happened thousands of times. Communities
and individuals who give up their ethnic language do
not end up in total silence, unable to communicate
with anyone any longer. Such language shifters usual-
ly acquire ‘modern’ and more ‘useful’ languages. Lan-
guage is one – some say the most important – asset of
culture and identity. But cultures as well as identities
change over time. Why then do some linguists seem to
think that the status quo of language usage could and
should be frozen?
While scholars would do well to refrain from senti-
mental statements on languages of other people, they
may very well respect and assist in spreading the
emotional attachment of the speakers themselves to
their language. Minorities and their offspring very
often experience the loss of their heritage languages
as traumatic. For example, as First Nations people in
Canada phrase it, without an ancestral language,
people are no longer able to relate to their environ-
ment or to their spiritual world. Khwe in Namibia,
Bretons in France, Ainu in Japan, Frisians in the
Netherlands, Mohawks in Quebec, and many other
ethnolinguistic minorities feel that way and want to
maintain or regain their languages. With such com-
munities, the question arises, what can be done and
by whom?
The Intangible Cultural Heritage Unit of UNESCO
has been working for more than 20 years with mem-
bers of endangered language communities and lin-
guists toward establishing an Endangered Language
Section. These initiatives have resulted in the for-
mulation of the documents ‘Language Vitality and
Endangerment’ as well as ‘Recommendations to the
Director General’ labeled ‘Action Plans’ in March
2003. I will highlight some of the key issues discussed
in these documents.
 Language Maintenance and Shift 543

It seems to me that there are basic differences in Global Context

the types of language endangerment in different lan-
Looking at the dynamics by which languages gain
guage contact settings. While we are quite familiar
speakers in the context of globalization, we find that
with the language endangerment situation in nation-
only a few languages benefit from global merging,
state contexts, as found for example in the Americas,
and these languages at present seem to be mainly
Australia, and Europe, we still know little about the
English and Spanish. The international exchange of
other parts of the world. The greatest linguistic diver-
knowledge and world trade are conducted to an in-
sity still exists in Papua New Guinea and in Africa
creasing degree in only a few world languages, and
south of the Sahara. The threat to these languages some scholars seem to expect that, given this tenden-
differs from that in the previously mentioned parts
cy, a world culture, based on one common language,
of the world.
will finally emerge from these developments.
Ethnolinguistic minorities from nation-state con-
But up to now, we can state that languages have not
texts, such as the First Nations people in Canada or
been replaced in the context of globalization. The so-
the Amazigh in Morocco, may benefit from examin-
called world languages – increasingly English only –
ing the living experience and common practice of
are acquired as additional and not as first languages.
multilingualism in most sub-Saharan African com-
For example, the integration of the new European
munities. The latter, in turn, must learn about the Union member states accelerates the spread of
experiences of minorities in nation-states because
English as the European lingua franca. In the course
this will be their challenge in the near future.
of this process, French will further lose second lan-
UNESCO is playing an important role by supporting
guage speakers, but at the same time, none of the
African governments in establishing language policies
European national languages, especially not French,
that might help to allow for cultural and linguistic
will lose first language speakers to English (‘After
diversity within their nation-states.
Babel,’ 2004).
The role of UNESCO in that process is threefold.
UNESCO addresses governments on their educa- Nation-State Context
tional and cultural policies within the frame of its
In the context of nation-states, governments obviously
‘Universal Declaration on Cultural Diversity’ of
rely on the languages in which they run the countries.
2001. But UNESCO in addition requests the active
National majority languages are widely established
involvement of linguists and speech communities to
and used in administration, politics, science, and edu-
safeguard the still-existing linguistic diversity. Noriko
cation, as well as in media and literature. Such national
Aikawa, director of the Intangible Heritage Section
languages may not be confined to single political-
of UNESCO, stated in 2001: ‘‘UNESCO’s future
administrative territories; the same language may be
strategy on languages is to strengthen co-ordination
in such a dominant position in several nation-states.
between language research, policy and education
National languages may also not cover an entire
programs. The results of research should be immedi-
nation-state, as we see in Quebec. However, common
ately incorporated into appropriate language policies,
to all these national languages is the criterion that they
educational planning and pedagogical tools.’’
are instrumentalized by governments, and with that
(Aikawa, 2004: 35).
they receive official support and recognition within
nation-states.
Languages Are Threatened in Different
In the same context of nation-states, we often find
Settings
minority languages, which are threatened and mar-
The scenarios in which the world’s language diversity ginalized by the dominance of established national
is threatened range from subnational settings to na- languages. Languages of this latter type are, for
tional contexts and finally to environments that are example, Japanese, Finnish, German (German, Stan-
formed by processes associated with globalization. It dard), and Dutch. In their areas of domination they
is crucial, indeed, for the understanding of various endanger minority languages such as Ainu, Saami,
aspects of language endangerment, to consider the Sorbic, and Frisian, respectively. At the same time,
specific contexts in which language shifts occur. In various forms of English are threatening and
the following discussion, three different settings of replacing minority languages in quite a number of
language contact situations will be distinguished: the nation-states, such as the United States, Canada,
global context, the context of nation-states, and the the United Kingdom, Australia, and New Zealand.
subnational context. Within north African states, national Arabic varieties
544 Language Maintenance and Shift
are expanding – not only as a second language but
also as a mother tongue – and replacing the ancestral
languages of Amazigh communities.
Kiswahili (Swahili), in the Republic of Tanzania,
and Setswana (Tswana), in the Republic of Botswana,
are among the few African languages that are estab-
lished as media of nationwide communication. Only
these two sub-Saharan African languages have been
described as threats to other languages in the context
of the nation-state. Kiswahili threatens more than 130
other Tanzanian languages, while Setswana does the
same to about 30 languages spoken in Botswana.
Other African languages with a nationwide distribu-
tion, such as Kinyaruanda (Rwanda) and Kirundi
(Rundi), do not threaten minority languages at
all, because no minority languages exist within the
national boundaries.
Subnational Contexts
Minority languages in many parts of the world, how-
ever, are threatened in subnational contexts. In sub-
Saharan Africa, as just mentioned, very few African
languages are established nationwide. On the nation-
al level, African governments predominantly use the
imported languages of the former colonial powers,
and these are the prevailing languages in national
administration, in secondary and higher education,
in modern literature, etc. In most African countries,
the knowledge of these imported languages is still –
after 40 years of independence – confined to the
educated elite in the urban centers. One indication
that imported, formerly colonial languages have
not developed into the languages of the masses is the
fact that not a single African language has so far
been replaced by French and English. The only excep-
tion on the African continent seems to be the lan-
guage of the Guanche on the Canary Islands, who
lost their Amazigh language to Spanish after their
final defeat in 1496. If we consider Afrikaans as a
European language, then of course quite a number of
Khoisan languages have been replaced by that Indo-
European language, which is spoken exclusively on
the African continent.
For that reason, language displacement in sub-
Saharan Africa occurs, in by far the most cases, in
subnational contexts, i.e., minority languages are
generally not replaced by established national major-
ity languages. Language shift takes place in local con-
tact situations and for quite different reasons. For
example, speakers of a minority language may shift
from their language to another due to the adoption of
a different religious faith. Former hunter-gatherer
communities may assimilate to pastoral societies not
only in the mode of production but also by taking the
language of the pastoralist. Thus, African minority
languages are threatened and replaced by other
African languages, languages which themselves are
very often minor languages within the nation-state.
Ethnolinguistic minorities in sub-Saharan Africa
generally live in complex language contact situations
in which they are marginalized in subnational con-
texts and for various reasons. The processes that
may lead to the extinction of their languages are very
different from those that affect minority languages in
the contexts of nation-states. In the latter context,
minority languages are generally threatened because
they are dominated by national majority languages. In
sub-Saharan Africa, in contrast, most languages of
ethnolinguistic minorities have survived until today
precisely because their speakers have been and are
being marginalized and neglected, in other words,
excluded from national developments. Of course,
this should not lead us to be cynical and to conclude
that it may be better to let the people suffer in order
to keep their languages alive, so to speak. With
continued efforts and good fortune, the sub-Saharan
African nations, too, will progress further, and nation-
states there will become the dominant frames
of reference for minorities and their cultures. Then,
policies that respect and appreciate cultural and
linguistic diversity as an asset rather than an obsta-
cle to national unity may help to foster the use of
heritage languages among minority communities.
This seems to be one of the most prominent fields for
further activities for UNESCO and also for linguists.
Which Languages Are Endangered?
The evaluation of the state of vitality of any language
is a challenging task, mainly because speech commu-
nities are complex and language use patterns within
these communities are difficult to explore. In addi-
tion, poor infrastructure and rigid political conditions
may not even allow for determining the number of
actual speakers of a language.
In 2001, an Ad-hoc Expert Group on Endangered
Languages was asked by the Intangible Cultural
Heritage Unit of UNESCO to prepare a draft over-
view of the threat to the world’s language diversity.
From March 10 to 12, 2003, an International Expert
Meeting on Endangered Languages was held at
the UNESCO headquarters in Paris, and linguists
and language planners, representatives of nongovern-
mental organizations, and members of endangered-
language speech communities discussed the draft.
Two documents, namely, ‘Language Vitality and
Endangerment’ and recommendations to the director
general (labeled ‘Action Plans’), were formulated in
March 2003.

Table 1 Factors for assessing endangered languagesa
Degree of endangerment
1. Intergenerational language transmission
2. Absolute number of speakers
3. Proportion of speakers within the total population
4. Loss of existing language domains
5. Response to new domains and media
6. Material for language education and literacy
7. Governmental and institutional language attitudes and
policies, including official status and use
8. Speakers’ attitudes towards their own language
Urgency of documentation
9. Amount and quality of documentation
a
UNESCO, 2003.
In the first document, nine major factors are iden-
tified to assess the language situation of endangered
languages (see Table 1).
Factors 1 through 6 focus on the assessment of a
language’s vitality and its state of endangerment. The
single most important factor is the first one, which
asks for the extent of language acquisition among the
children within a community. It is obvious that a
language without any young speakers is seriously
threatened with extinction.
Factors 1 through 5 are meant to capture the
dynamics of the processes of a given language shift
situation. The proportion of speakers within a com-
munity (factor 3) reveals an important aspect of
language vitality: is the minority language an essential
indicator for being regarded as a member of the
community or not? The Arggobba in Ethiopia, for
example, strongly insist on and declare their ethnic
identity and origin even though their language has
disappeared and it is not known whether any speak-
ers of Arggobba still exist among the more than
60 000 Arggobba.
Loss of domains (factor 4) for an ethnic tongue may
be triggered by, for example, the introduction of for-
mal education or by new job opportunities for mem-
bers of minority groups. A change in religious
affiliation can also result in a shift to another mother
tongue, a language that is associated with the new
religion (factor 5). For example, Hausa and Dyula
(Jula) spread in west Africa along with Islam. An
outstanding example of the correlation between lan-
guage and religious affiliation is the community of the
Jeri leatherworkers, who live among the Sienare
Senofo in the northern part of the Ivory Coast. The
members of the Jeri community abandon their
own language and adopt two different languages
as new mother tongues according to their reli-
gious affiliation: ‘‘Sienare with the non-Muslim,
and Manding with the Muslim Jeri’’ (Kastenholz,
1998: 259).
Language Maintenance and Shift 545
Factor 6 relates to the stage of development of a
given language (‘Ausbau’). Is there a community or-
thography? Have they agreed on a common standard
form for writing the language? Do teaching and
learning materials for the language exist? Is literature,
such as newsletters, stories, religious texts, and so
forth, published in that language?
Factor 8 assesses the speakers’ attitudes toward
their ethnic language, and factor 7 deals with the
government’s policies toward that language. And fi-
nally, factor 9 attempts to evaluate the urgency for
documentation by asking for the quantity and quality
of existing analyzed language data.
For minority languages in national contexts, such
as in Canada, New Zealand, and Morocco, it is obvi-
ous which of the languages have to be regarded as
being endangered, i.e., the First Nations languages,
Maori, and Amazigh, respectively. In other contexts,
all these nine factors should be taken together in
surveying the overall sociolinguistic situation of a
language with respect to its degree of endangerment.
What Is Actually Lost When Languages
Vanish?
The preamble to UNESCO’s ‘Language Vitality and
Endangerment’ document includes the following
statement:
The extinction of each language results in the irrecover-
able loss of unique cultural, historical, and ecological
knowledge. Each language is a unique expression of the
human experience of the world. Thus, the knowledge of
any single language may be the key to answering funda-
mental questions of the future. Every time a language
dies, we have less evidence for understanding patterns in
the structure and function of human language, human
prehistory, and the maintenance of the world’s diverse
ecosystems. Above all, speakers of these languages may
experience the loss of their language as a loss of their
original ethnic and cultural identity. (UNESCO, 2003: 2,
with permission.)
Obviously, linguists need language data from as
many languages as possible in order to reconstruct
language history, set up typologies on aspects of
structure, or understand concepts underlying lan-
guages. But above that, do endangered languages
offer anything special to linguists?
In his article ‘The endangered languages of
Ethiopia: what’s at stake for the linguists?’ Hayward
(1998) provides several examples of unusual struc-
tural phenomena that exist only in endangered
Ethiopian languages. For example, an established
typology of number systems had to be fundamen-
tally revised because of linguistic forms found in
546 Language Maintenance and Shift
Bayso (Baiso), an endangered language spoken in the
southern part of Ethiopia.
The lexicon and categories of each language are
based on and reflect a certain conceptualization of
the world. The human population shares more and
more perceptions of the world channeled through a
rapidly spreading global culture. With that, concepts
diverging from the global norms are rapidly fading
and appear to be the most vulnerable assets of lan-
guages. The numeral systems, spatial orientation, and
taxonomies are only some of the areas that are being
homogenized in this process (Brenzinger, 2003).
As a final example, even the sounds of languages
may no longer be heard, which is unquestionably an
essential loss, maybe not only for linguists. The bila-
bial click, also referred to as the ‘kiss click,’ had been
reported by the late Oswin Köhler (personal commu-
nication) to be extinct with the death of the last
speaker of a Southern Khoesan language in the early
1970s. At the same time, Anthony Traill collected
language data from !Xóõ, ‘‘the last of the Southern
Bushmen languages that were once spoken through-
out southern Africa’’ (Traill, 1985: 6). With these
approximately 1000 speakers of variants of !Xóõ, a
unique sound of human language, the kiss click, has
survived until today.
In turning to the speakers themselves, we may ask:
do they suffer from any loss when they abandon their
heritage language?
Lee Cronk, an American social anthropologist, has
studied the change in ethnicity and culture of a former
hunter-gatherer people in Kenya. This community
was formerly known as Yaaku, then Mukogodo,
and today they belong to the Maasai society. The
community lost the former Cushitic language and
adopted the Maa language. The Mukogodo took
over the pastoral mode of production and along
with that the culture of the Maasai.
Mukogodo [born around the 1930s] and before were
born in rock shelters, grew up speaking Yaaku, and ate
honey and wild game. Younger people were born in
small houses, grew up speaking Maa, and drink milk
and eat meat from goat, sheep, and cattle. In the past
few decades, Mukogodo have also begun attending
schools, getting jobs in and outside the Mukogodo
area, and even traveling to Ulaya [Europe] itself. Change
has been the norm for most humanity for the past centu-
ry or more, and nowhere has it been faster or more
dramatic than among the Mukogodo. (Cronk, 2004: 2,
with permission.)
Maasai culture has spread over a wide area of
east Africa, and several hunter-gatherer communities
have lost their distinct identity and language in the
‘‘homogenizing force of Maasai society and culture’’
(Cronk, 2004: 143). Cronk captured an experience
I had while working with a Yaaku elder in 1990:
One day while conducting an interview with an elder-
ly Mukogodo man about the old language [Yaaku],
Brenzinger played back some Yaaku phrases that the
man had spoken earlier into a tape recorder. At first,
the man was delighted to hear the old language, even if it
was coming from a box rather than from a person. Not
really understanding the principle of the tape recorder,
he tried engaging it in conversation, giving the custom-
ary cheery ‘Eiuwuo!’ response to the recorded greeting
‘Aichee!’ But soon it became obvious that the tape re-
corder did not really know how to carry on a conversa-
tion in Yaaku. The man first became frustrated, then
very angry, and finally he began to weep. (Cronk,
2004: 83, with permission.)
In 1990, only a few elders remembered fragments
of the old Yaaku language, and the emotional affec-
tion for the Yaaku language, as expressed in the above
story, was not shared by other community members.
The young members of the community were not in-
terested in the language of their grandparents, whom
they thought of as ‘primitive’ cave people, even
though some of them were still alive. The community
had adopted the Maasai lifestyle and values in sharing
the high appreciation for cattle and Maasai customs
such as female circumcision, the age-set system
(in which groups of men go through initiation
and other stages of life together), and marriage
ceremonies.
Although the Mukogodo-Maasai decided to aban-
don their former language and culture, many other
indigenous peoples insist that linguistic (and ethnic)
identity is essential and enables them to respond to the
everyday challenges in their lives. The deep-rooted
emotional affection of many speakers for their
language has been expressed very often. The follow-
ing statement is by Christine Johnson, a Tohono
O’odham elder, for the American Indian Language
Development Institute in June 2002.
I speak my favourite language
because
that’s who I am.
We teach our children our favourite language,
because
we want them to know who they are. (UNESCO, 2003: 1)
There are members of various globally dominant
cultures who think that the worldwide spread of one
language, of course their own (together with their
culture, economy, and religion), would be for the
benefit of all humankind. Obviously, not everyone
agrees on that. However, one also has to respect the

will of communities that decide to abandon their
language and culture, as described with the former
Yaaku, today’s Mukogodo-Maasai.
What Could and Should Be Done?
What is the first priority when languages are
threatened by extinction? Among scholars, there is
hardly any argument: documentation, i.e., research
on and collection of data from endangered languages,
is the fundamental task for linguists working in this
field.
Within ethnolinguistic communities discussions on
the future of their ancestral languages are far more
complex, and quite diverse opinions are expressed.
Those speaking endangered languages often consider
their own language as being backward and not func-
tional for themselves and future generations. Other
communities, however, experience threats to their
languages as a crisis and commit themselves to lan-
guage (re)vitalization activities, establishing envir-
onments, such as kindergartens, in which their
languages are exclusively spoken in order to stabilize
their mother languages among the young generation.
An increasing number of ethnolinguistic minorities
want more. Firstly, they demand control over the
terms and conditions that govern the conduct of re-
search; secondly, they claim rights on research out-
comes and also want to have a say in how research
results should be used and disseminated.
There is a minimal consensus among linguists on
the overall importance of the preservation of lan-
guage data of endangered languages. However, reac-
tions to demands for assistance by the speech
communities with which linguists work may vary
widely. Such requests relate mainly to four areas,
which may be regarded as essential for safeguarding
endangered languages.
Language Work
Many scholars working with ethnolinguistic minori-
ties are willing to help develop practical orthog-
raphies that can be used by community members
themselves. And some scholars assist communities in
the production of reading, learning, and teaching
materials.
Capacity Building
Capacity building in this context may refer to the
training of local language workers in reading and
writing their own languages, the production of
reading materials, etc. More privileged settings fur-
ther allow for the training of language teachers. The
formation of local, academic research centers in
Language Maintenance and Shift 547
which speakers of endangered languages are trained
to study and document their own languages is possi-
ble with quite a few ethnolinguistic minorities. And
an exceptional case for the African continent is the
Royal Institute for the Amazigh Culture, in which
professors and researchers have worked since Octo-
ber 17, 2001, in a national research institute at the
University of Rabat to document and develop their
own threatened mother tongue, Amazigh.
Language Policy
Language policy is a highly sensitive issue in well-
established democracies and even more so in
countries that are still struggling to find their way to
good governance. Very few linguists are actively
involved in the formulation of national language poli-
cies in countries of the first kind, and none I know of
in those of the second.
In the educational sector, quite a number of lin-
guists are engaged in implementing mother tongue
education programs to safeguard ancestral languages.
Mother tongue education has become more popular
in most parts of the world over the past 15 years, and
UNESCO has been instrumental in this development
through its policy statements and related activities
since 1953.
Looking at endangered languages, however, we
find that in many Asian and African countries, so-
called mother tongue education does not refer to the
ancestral languages of ethnolinguistic minorities but
to the use of local, provincial, and national dominant
languages as the media of instruction. Less than
10% of the approximately 2000 African languages
are currently employed as media of instruction in
the educational sector, with not even a single
endangered language among them. Mother tongue
education in many cases further cements the position
of languages that spread at the expense of endangered
languages. As linguists, we are obliged to support
any attempt to use African languages in formal edu-
cation, but with that we may involuntarily help to
threaten the languages of ethnolinguistic minorities,
which are not included among the media of mother
tongue education. There seems to be no way out of
this dilemma.
Living Conditions
Dealing with the living conditions of communities
is commonly not considered to be within the assign-
ment of linguists. Nevertheless, linguists could help to
overcome problems caused by economic poverty and
lack of education. For example, national HIV/AIDS
awareness programs do not generally consider the
often-illiterate ethnolinguistic minorities. Materials
548 Language Maintenance and Shift
produced for these marginalized communities require
input from linguists because the concepts and contents
need to be conveyed in a culturally meaningful way.
Only then can these communities understand the
challenge of HIV/AIDS and react to it appropriately.
Roles for Linguists and Speech
Communities
Maintaining language diversity demands the involve-
ment of linguists, language planners, and policy
makers. Akira Yamamoto has been rightfully de-
manding for many years that ‘research in endangered
language communities must be reciprocal and col-
laborative’ because only in working together with
the communities are linguists able to contribute to
the safeguarding of endangered languages.
Some scholars estimate that in the last 500 years at
least half of the languages formerly spoken throughout
the world have disappeared. They suggest that only
10% of the present day languages are safe, i.e., not
threatened with extinction. To safeguard the vast num-
ber of endangered languages requires actions in quite a
number of different areas, far more than the few men-
tioned above. The specific activities that can and
should be carried out in a given research setting are
determined by several factors. Each research context
has its specific limitations and prospects, and these
always depend heavily on communities’ attitudes to-
ward their own language and their perception of the
research carried out on it. And yet, the professional and
social competence of a researcher is crucial in deter-
mining what is actually possible in the collaboration
between the scholar and the speech community.
Having a linguist who is a member of the commu-
nity does not always keep other community members
from doubting linguistic research being carried out on
an endangered language. Ofelia Zepeda, a trained
linguist who wrote her Ph.D. thesis on her mother
tongue, describes the most critical challenges to her
linguistic work, which came from her own people, the
O’odham. The objections to her work came from two
different angles. The few O’odham people who had
received some linguistic training some years before
her, instead of supporting her, created obstacles to
her work.
Interestingly it was this small group of skilled O’odham
language teachers who looked at my publication critical-
ly and in their own way offered criticism. However, their
criticism was often not constructive or friendly. While
still other O’odham people, taking the conservative po-
sition, let me know that it was wrong to write the
language and to publish it for wide dissemination.
(Zepeda, 2004: 7)
Dr Zepeda published A Papago grammar in 1982,
but the O’odham people have only now, after more
than 20 years, started to acknowledge her academic
and community work on her mother tongue.
Proficiency in nationally and internationally domi-
nant languages will gain importance throughout the
world and, for that reason, will continue to spread.
This development does not necessarily require
the sacrifice of other languages, i.e., mother tongues
of ethnolinguistic minorities, because most societies
have always been multilingual. However, speakers
might decide to abandon a low-prestige ethnic tongue
for the benefit of social mobility and career opportu-
nities. Languages are either maintained or abandoned
by their speakers. In these situations, ancestral lan-
guages can survive in the long run only if meaningful
roles for them can be established in the lives of the
community members. Ultimately, in order to main-
tain and perpetuate the world’s language diversity,
these speakers have to find good reasons for keeping
their ancestral language alive in natural everyday
communication with their offspring.
See also: Endangered Languages; Environment and Lan-
guage; Ethnolinguistic Vitality; Identity and Language;
Language Planning and Policy: Models; Migration and
Language Planning; Mother Tongue Education: Nonstan-
dard Language; Reversing Language Shift; Tohono
O’odham.
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Language of Legal Texts
P Tiersma, Loyola Law School, Los Angles, CA, USA
ß 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Introduction
A legal text differs in a number of ways from ordinary
spoken language. This is especially true of authorita-
tive legal texts: those that create, modify, or terminate
a legal state of affairs. Such texts are what J. L. Austin
might have called written performatives. Lawyers
often refer to them as operative or dispositive.
Language of Legal Texts 549
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Although the focus of this article is on Anglo-Ameri-
can law, the general nature of legal texts is remark-
ably similar across legal systems, although the details
of their structure and use can vary considerably.
The Development of the Text
Legal transactions must originally have been per-
formed by means of speech, often accompanied by
rituals of various types. With the development of
literacy, it became possible to make a record of such
transactions in writing or even to transact them in