The Journeys of Besieged Languages

Poia Rewi editor Rawinia Higgins editor Delyn Day editor

Format:Hardback

Publisher:Cambridge Scholars Publishing

Published:27th Feb '17

Should be back in stock very soon

The Journeys of Besieged Languages cover

This volume allows 13 besieged languages to tell their own stories by way of their consummate battles with languages that dominate their traditional spaces and ways of thinking. It tells of the value of these languages through linkages with the past and present and where continuation of this might further share those values with wider audiences beyond the current language users. As such, the book captures a discourse on the existence of minority languages in countries and states where they are under threat by the ‘Governing’ language.

"Written in a variety of styles, from the recounting of personal experiences through to highly technical analyses, the overall result is a fascinating picture of the major concerns surrounding threatened languages, and includes compelling arguments for continuing and expanding the efforts to rejuvenate them, ways of assessing the dangers they face, and suggestions and illustrations of what has succeeded and what hasn’t. [...] [T]his book is an accessible and absorbing contribution to a very topical issue, and it should be of considerable interest to both the general reader and the specialist."Tony ChapelleFlaxFlower Reviews, 27.06.2017“One of the strengths of The Journeys of Besieged Languages lies in the diversity and depth of the reflections of the contributors to the book. […] The book presents, sometimes with sadness, sometimes with optimism, the complexity of the challenges and issues related to the maintenance and survival of these languages, and these perspectives give the whole work a deeply human character, something which is accentuated by the fact that most of them are testimonies and lived experiences lived of the authors. The reader can hardly remain indifferent to it. It is this character that connects all these languages together and, beyond their differences and the distance between them, it is indeed the common thread of this trip.”David PajotLinguistic Minorities and Society 9 (2018)

ISBN: 9781443899437

Dimensions: unknown

Weight: unknown

368 pages

Unabridged edition