tzigi

As someone who works with endangered languages I will chime in: languages and language varities/dialects are endangered pretty much everywhere (I work with groups from Mexico, Italy, Netherlands and Poland for example - but our next project is set to encompass also the Republic of South Africa and Vanuatu). Take a look around you and see who's marginalised, whether they speak some language which differs in some way from the majority one and you might find yourself soon sitting on the fence between academia and activism.

The work itself has many very different aspects: the one our AmA host does seems mostly documentary/fieldwork focused i.e. it's going out and documenting a language. But for other endangered languages a huge part of work is their revitalization and that's a whole new set of issues. What helps are people skills, linguistic skills and basic common sense - in my opinion in this order. Without people skills researchers often become indistinguishable from colonizers taking knowledge away from the community and profiting form it or conversely - not being able to get anything at all. Without linguistic skills (and a solid grounding in the knowledge) one can help a lot but not with language itself, more with culture or politics. Without basic common sense (a thing which - unsurprisingly - is rather lacking among many scholars) one either finds oneself in trouble during fieldwork or irritates the local collaborators.

I have way more to say about it but it's just a reddit comment so I'll stick with that. However should you want to know more, I can point you to a really new (I mean like "this week new") book we've just published in Cambridge University Press and made available in Open Access: Revitalizing Endangered Languages A Practical Guide. And yes, it's unashamed self-promotion as I am one of the authors of the texts featured there.

If you have any more questions, I'd gladly answer them :)

No, it isn't. Speaking a different language gives people a different perspective on things - this is more or less why teams with more diversity are more successful. Being able to keep one's own language prevents many physical and mental health problems - especially those arising from historical trauma. Being able to speak more than one language is great for cognitive development and might protect against dementia.

In general the world would be off worse if all people talked the same language.

What could a random person on the internet do to brighten your day?