Language situation and language policy in Latvia

Jul 16, 2011 by

The Ethnologue’s page on Latvia states that there are five living languages spoken in this Baltic country: Latvian, Latvian Sign Language, Liv, Baltic Romani and Eastern Yiddish. But this is true only in as much as only the...

read more

Endangered Languages and the Wikipedia

Apr 19, 2011 by

If a Martian scholar trying to understand the cultural geography of our planet had access solely to the Wikipedia, he’d get a very biased and possibly misleading picture of our human linguistic geography. As discussed in a...

read more

On the Mari language and Mari schools

Jan 11, 2011 by

Russian Federation is a multi-lingual and multi-ethnic country with over 100 languages being listed for it in the Ethnologue.com. Yet many of these languages are endangered, with more and more speakers switching to Russian. In part,...

read more

Should we make English the official language in the United States?

Sep 24, 2010 by

The San Mateo Examiner columnist Gregory Kane thinks so. His argument goes as follows: The top spots on the list of major economic powers and of major military powers are not occupied by Spanish-speaking countries like Spain or...

read more

Are dying languages worth saving?

Sep 21, 2010 by

A recent conference at the Trinity College Carmarthen in Wales focused on the question of language endangerment. Experts estimate that 25 languages die each year. This amounts to losing 250 languages in a decade, something many...

read more

Language and ethnicity: Spain

Sep 1, 2010 by

Undoubtedly, language constitutes an important ingredient in one’s ethnic or national identity. What is essentially the same language, may be perceived — by speakers themselves — as distinct languages, based on...

read more