Omniglot book store

When Languages Die: The Extinction of the World's Languages and the Erosion of Human Knowledge

by K. David Harrison

- this book is the first to focus on the essential question: what is lost when a language dies? What forms of knowledge are embedded in a language's structure and vocabulary? And how harmful is it to humanity that such knowledge is lost forever? Harrison spans the globe from Siberia, to North America, to the Himalayas and elsewhere, to look at the human knowledge that is slowly being lost as the languages that express it fade from sight. He uses fascinating anecdotes and portraits of some of these languages' last remaining speakers, in order to demonstrate that this knowledge about ourselves and the world is inherently precious and once gone, will be lost forever.

Buy from: Amazon.com or Amazon.co.uk

Language in Danger - How language loss threatens our furture

by Andrew Dalby

- language extinction has been a feature of the 20th century - it is expected that a language will become extinct every two weeks of the 21st century. This book explores the "life cycle" of languages: their birth, their interaction and - especially - what happens when they die.

Buy from: Amazon.com or Amazon.co.uk

Vanishing Voices: The Extinction of the World's Languages

by Daniel Nettle and Suzanne Romaine

- an exploration of language extinction and the links between the disappearance of languages and cultures and the destruction of the world's ecosystem.

Buy from: Amazon.com or Amazon.co.uk

Language Death

by David Crystal

- in this book David Crystal discusses why language death is a matter for concern, the reasons behind it and what can be done about it. He also examines a number of endangered languages in more detail.

Buy from: Amazon.com or Amazon.co.uk

Endangered Languages : Language Loss and Community Response

by Lenore A. Grenoble and Lindsay J. Whaley

- discusses the ways in which languages are lost from sociological, economic and linguistic perspectives, and explores some of the strategies used by native communities and professional linguists in the face of language endangerment

Buy from: Amazon.com or Amazon.co.uk

Language Endangerment and Language Maintenance

by David Bradley and Maya Bradley

- explores such questions as: What rights do minority communities have concerning their languages? How does each language conceptualize the world? How much knowledge about the world and a local ecosystem is lost when a language disappears? How can language shift be stopped or reversed?

Buy from: Amazon.com or Amazon.co.uk

Reversing Language Shift: Theoretical and Empirical Foundations of Assistance to Threatened Languages

by Joshua A. Fishman

- investigates why language revival projects are rarely very successful, where they go wrong and how they might be made more effective.

Buy from: Amazon.com or Amazon.co.uk

Empires of the Word: A Language History of the World

by Nicholas Ostler

- examines why some languages survive while others die out, and why English currently reigns supreme.

Buy from: Amazon.co.uk