The Conservation of Endangered Languages: seminar announcement
D.A.Brickley (pldab@info.bris.ac.uk)
Wed, 7 Dec 1994 12:02:26 GMT
THE CENTRE FOR THEORIES OF LANGUAGE AND LEARNING
UNIVERSITY OF BRISTOL DEPARTMENT OF PHILOSOPHY
announces a seminar on
THE CONSERVATION OF ENDANGERED LANGUAGES
Friday April 21st 1995 at 9 Woodland Rd, Bristol BS8 1TB
According to reliable estimates, half of the world's six
thousand languages will become extinct in the next century.
Furthermore, two thousand of the remaining three thousand
languages will be threatened during the century after next.
In the UK these startling facts have recently received media
attention, stimulated partly by the publication this year of
the Atlas of the World's Languages, edited by Christopher
Moseley and R.E.Asher (Routledge).
The rapid decline is largely due to a mixture of economic
and political pressures affecting communities that speak
minority languages, pressures which remove the new
generation's motivation for communicating in their
traditional language.
The problem of language-extinction raises fundamental
questions. What is the value of these threatened languages
to science and to humankind in general? What principles
might justify us in striving to keep small languages alive?
What reasons are there for preserving them in archive form?
The seminar is aimed primarily at academics from such
disciplines as philosophy, ethics, anthropology,
linguistics, sciolinguistics, cultural history, ecology and
population biology, but is open to all interested persons.
Seminar Programme
Registration Desk opens 9.30a.m.
10-11am Mapping the Future of the World's Languages
Mr.Christopher Moseley,
Co-editor of Atlas of the World's Languages 1994
11-12 Should Linguistic Diversity be Preserved?
Dr. Mark Pagel,
Dept of Zoology, Oxford University
12-1 Who Wants to Learn a Native Language in Latin America?
Prof. Marcelo Dascal,
Inst.of Advanced Studies, Hebrew University of Jerusalem
1-2 Lunch
2-3 Thinking Twice:
Issues in Welsh as a Second Language in Children Under 5
Ms. Sian Wyn Siencyn,
Language Consultant, Author of The Sound of Europe
3-4 Orchestrating Language Revival
Mr. Allan Wynne Jones,
European Bureau for Lesser Used Languages
4-6 Round Table and Discussion with contributions from the floor
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Seminar Registration Form
I should like to register for the one day seminar at Bristol
University and enclose my cheque for the amount stated below.
SIGNATURE:
NAME (Capitals):
ADDRESS AND TELEPHONE:
E-MAIL:
ACCOMODATION WANTED? A limited amount of single Bed and
Breakfast accomodation can be provided near to the seminar
venue, at a cost of 22 UK pounds per night (standard room)
or 36 UK pounds (en suite room).
B&B night of Thursday 20th April: ___________
B&B night of Friday 21st April: ___________
Total (accomodation): ___________
Registration Fee: 5 UK Pounds
Total: ___________
Please send this form and cheque payable to 'The University
of Bristol' to:
CTLL,
Graduate Studies Centre,
7 Woodland Road,
Bristol BS8 1TB
UK.
For further information, contact the seminar organisers
Dan Brickley and Andrew Woodfield (email: centre-tll@bristol.ac.uk)
A background article on the topic is also available by email
or by accessing the CTLL World Wide Web pages using the following
Internet URL:
http://www.bris.ac.uk/Depts/Philosophy/CTLL/index.html
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