Spoken Here: Travels Among Threatened Languages [Hardcover]

It's hard to put a finger on why the book was a bit of a letdown. Abley is scrupulously fair-minded in his reportage, and has clearly done a great deal of research. He's careful not to blindly place language preservationists on a pedestal, and asks some genuinely hard questions. Although here's clearly a champion of these disappearing languages and draws a distinct parallel between biodiversity and linguistic diversity, he doesn't shy from shining the light on the failings or more objectionable sides of preservationists. That said, there are a few shortcomings. One of these is that he never really discusses how this whole issue worked in the past. When the Roman Empire ran amok, did Latin replace indigenous speech? More problematic is his focus on languages developed nations. For example, the spread of Spanish in South America, and English and French in Africa have had profound influences, but ABley sticks to North America, Western Europe, and Australia. Finally, the prose-despite noble efforts to inject humor at times-remains rather dry throughout. Some of the chapters run on and on, and would have benefited from judicious editing.

Still, it's hard to fault a book on such an important topic, and the mix of sociology, travelogue, linguistics, and history is probably the best approach to the topic. Recommended for those with a deep interest in the whole wide world and/or language, others may find it slow going.

What is to be done? Spoken Here is practically a handbook for me, of things I can try, things I can avoid, in my personal crusade to impress Tayal on the next generation. The author is alert to cant, dogma, and dead-end thinking, so the reader can see the fallacies of certain viewpoints. The writing is fluid and informative. His sympathy to the speakers of these languages makes their plights come alive.

I wish books like this came with a CD. Looking at the word Tayal, did you have any clue that it is pronounced dah-YEN? If I write a Tayal word such as qsnuw or mksingut, does that give you any idea of how to pronounce it? I would love to hear what Yuchi, Wangkajunga, or Mohawk actually sound like (although a friend who has been there told me Welsh sounds like angry geese). I have listened to a couple Australian Aboriginal languages by tracking down their websites, which raises my main ¡V albeit minor - complaint about this book. In the Sources, he tells us things like "see the Web site of the Maori Language Commission" or "All these organizations have web sites." It would have burdened him very little, and given the book completeness, if he had taken the trouble to provide the http addresses for those sites!