English as a lingua franca (40)

24 Name: bubu : 2006-03-06 09:53 ID:Heaven

In Africa, English has been hard at work weeding out "smaller" languages, primarily of the QueQue and Bantou variety (Xiri, Yukuben, ...)
In North America, many native languages are either already dead, or on the brink of extinction. Some Algic languages are doing comparably well (Mi'kmaq has some 8'000 speakers), but most are being utterly crushed.
In Australia/Oceania, it's logically the "Aborigines" languages that are being trampled underfoot, for example Nyangumarda has some 500-odd speakers left.
bla bla bla, the list goes on and on.

>>23
actually, most learn a truncated version of their native language and a truncated version of the killer language, then find the respective killer language more important to get by (in business; in official matters; ...) and then choose not to perpetuate their language when spawning children of their own.
It's unsurprisingly extremely congruent with developments in immigrant worker's language development, which has been excellently treatised by de Cillia et al.

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