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beginning of the most recent period of academic attention to the issue of language endangerment. Since the late 1950s, emphasis had shifted away from field linguistics in the major journals, particularly Language, and the publication of these articles served to bring attention back to field linguistics. At the time, there were also few publications directly addressing language endangerment, the term itself being a neologism. The articles remain highly cited, partly because one of them contained what was at the time regarded as the best estimate of the number of the world’s languages (given as 6,000), and the number of endangered languages (half are expected to be extinct at the end of the 21 st century). 1
Language statistics is not otherwise a major contribution of this set of articles. Robins, R; and Uhlenbeck, E, eds. 1991. Endangered Languages. Oxford: Berg. This publication consists of ten chapters from contributors, the first an article by S. Wurm describing the causes and circumstances of language endangerment, and the remaining chapters being country-based or regional surveys covering most of the areas of the world. Chapters vary in the level of detail they provide regarding the number and type of languages they report on and the nature of the information they provide. For example, Brenzinger, et al. (1991) focuses on language death, rather than endangerment per se, and presents data on the numbers and names of languages that have recently ceased to be spoken in various countries, whereas Adelaar (1991) reports language group sizes as well as names, on a per-country basis. Other chapters address demographic trends mostly in larger languages (e.g. Mahapatra 1991 on India), or address languages of a particular set of families only partly respective of location (e.g. Matisoff 1991, which looks at several Southeast Asian families, some of which have members in India). Using the lists of languages and populations is somewhat difficult as many times they do not appear in tables, but are listed in dense paragraphs, where it can be hard to find particular mentions of languages. The book also lacks an index that might help in this regard. This publication is important nonetheless as it was the first in the field of linguistics to provide concrete documentation of the endangerment of a number of languages.
Wurm, S, ed. 2001. Atlas of the World’s Languages in Danger of Disappearing (second edition, revised and enlarged). Barcelona: UNESCO Publications. Originally published in 1996, this publication indicates locations, but not population sizes, for more than 1000 endangered, potentially endangered, or recently extinct languages, a staggering number, given that the number of living languages worldwide is generally given as being around 6000. This would mean that up to 1/6 of the worlds languages are presently in danger of disappearing within the next generation. The publication offers no population data, but provides detailed maps locating each of the listed languages. Among the revisions is an updated set of introductory materials about the subject of endangered languages, including a review of research since 1996. Table 1 lists the number of
1 This information turns out to have come from the 11 th edition of the Ethnologue (Grimes and Grimes 1988).
languages indicated on each map, in order of presentation (inset maps are omitted if they present duplicates of languages on the larger maps).
Table 1. Numbers of endangered languages listed in Wurm (2001). Youngest speakers: Some children Young adults Middle- aged Elderly (moribund) None (extinct) Europe 3 49 38 6 13 Siberia 3 4 22 22
14 Northeast China 3 4 4 9 2 Himalayas 6 6 2 3 2 Southeast Asia 27
9 8 4 9 Oceania 56
59 39
28 29
Australia 22
21 30
32 0
0 41
59 40
42 American Arctic 10
18 17
4 17
Canada (sub-arctic) 10
23 21
16 13
Central America 19
7 14
13 6
0 33
33 32
12
publications are not of much use in connection with language statistics, as they may focus on humanistic or structural rather than statistical aspects of language endangerment, or on specific languages or situations (e.g. studies in Dorian, ed. 1989; Grenoble and Whaley, eds. 1998; Wolfson and Manes, eds. 1985). A few, though they deal with large-scale geographic areas (e.g. Mühlhäusler 1996, for the Pacific), nonetheless do not provide numbers of languages or their speakers. Another resource (Dalby 2003) compares Linguasphere Register and Ethnologue figures in estimating the number of languages worldwide (pp 24ff.). Yet another explores the relationship between biological and linguistic diversity, e.g. the language-related studies in Maffi, ed. (2001). Even so, these studies tend to provide little in the way of new quantitative data on languages or their speakers. Such studies which do use quantitative language data tend to get it from the Ethnologue (e.g. Corbett 2001; Smith 2001; 11 th , 12
th or 13
th editions at the time of this particular publication). Only one study in this volume appears to present new quantitative data for a single country, that of Botswana (Batibo 2001).
comprehensive, global nature. Generally, where they are of good quality, these references provide sufficient information about the world’s major languages (Comrie 1983; Dalby 2004), or languages of a specific area or region (Breton 1997; Dixon 1980; Dixon and Aikhenvald 1999; Mithun 1999; etc.), but they are typically not systematic in their presentation of statistical information. In addition, they tend not to provide information about the currency or provenance of statistical information, so verifying sources is difficult. Many references in relevant areas lack statistical information altogether.
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