[SOLVED] Language Vitality
As a final paper for this course, you will assemble a set of sources on a minor language (one with a million or fewer speakers) and summarize what you learn from them in a 10-page report. The report will be organized into three parts: Social and Historical Context, Linguistic Structure, and Language Vitality. In the first part (approximately 2 pages), you will briefly describe the people who speak the language, the area where it is spoken, and its genetic affiliation. Here you will discuss things like how many speakers the language has and which main dialects can be identified. In the second part (approximately 5 pages) you will describe and 4 exemplify the main features of the languages grammar (sounds, word structures, and sentence structures), using the terms that have been developed throughout the course. In the third part (approximately 3 pages) you will provide an assessment of the languages vitality based on the kinds of measures we have discussed in class. This includes answer questions like: Do the speakers use the language for commerce or schooling? Is there written documents / literature in the language? What is its level of prestige of the language within the local linguistic landscape? What historical circumstances might be threatening the languages continued existence? Have these circumstances been changing recently, or do you see them as likely to change in the future? Your final project report must be accompanied by an annotated bibliography. This is a list of references in which each is summarized in a short paragraph description. Drafts of your report and annotated bibliography will be due one part at a time on specified dates during the semester. Your information sources may include some web materials, but your report should not be entirely web-based: you will have to do serious library research for this project.
