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Mark Abley. Spoken Here: Travels Among Threatened Languages. New York: Mariner Books. 2005. xii + 322 pp. Reviewed by Paolo Coluzzi The author of Spoken Here is not a linguist, but a Canadian journalist writing for the Montreal Gazette, the Times Literary Supplement and other publications. Therefore his book is not an academic work in the strict sense. However, Mark Abley may have contributed more to the cause of endangered languages than many even excellent books on the subject read and used only in academic circles. Besides, even if Spoken Here is written in a journalistic and rather colloquial style, its author has carried out such in-depth documentation that his arguments only rarely stray into imprecision or naivety. Such thorough documentation and the way the book is written reveal clearly the author’s interest in and fascination with small languages and the rich cultures lying behind them, and the passion he feels for the predicament of these disappearing languages and cultures. The book’s arguments are strengthened by the fine portrayal of the sociopolitical and economic background that has led to language endangerment in all the cases described — the socioeconomic results of globalization and the language shift it encourages. The following quotation (195) sums the matter up: “Young children I had never seen before used to run up to me and press apricots into my hands,” wrote the Swedish anthropologist Helena Norberg-Hodge in her book Ancient Futures: Learning from Ladakh. “Now little figures, looking shabbily Dickensian in threadbare Western clothing, greet foreigners with empty outstretched hands. The films they see and the tourists they meet make their lives seem primitive.” No longer do the Ladakhi people stand at the center of their own lives; instead they are conscious of existing on a periphery, far from the “real life” taking place in New Delhi or New York. Young travelers from rich countries flock to Ladakh, hoping to find an unspoiled refuge from the materialism of their own societies. Instead they pass on the very values they are yearning to escape. They don’t speak Ladakhi. They don’t drink butter tea. Searching for the wisdom of the ages, they encourage the locals to speak English and sell soft drinks. Defenders of highway building and globalization can rightly say that the Ladakhis are richer than before. But it would be hard to claim they’re better off.
The book, which describes the situation of several minority languages in America, Europe, Asia and Australia, is divided into fifteen chapters followed by a long list of sources, acknowledgments and a thorough index. It is gripping and easy to read, Language Problems & Language Planning 32:3 (2008), 285–287. doi 10.1075/lplp.32.3.10col issn 0272–2690 / e-issn 1569–9889 © John Benjamins Publishing Company
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leading the reader to the four corners of the world where Mark Abley has traveled to gather material and get acquainted with people and situations — involving scenarios of rapid language shift from the local language to the dominant one, or of more or less successful language revitalization. However, he not only writes about the wider sociopolitical issues mentioned above, but also often tries to give practical examples of the languages touched on and what he finds particularly interesting and fascinating about them, and of the efforts that are being carried out for their maintenance or spread. Most of the minority languages Abley looks at are endangered, some more seriously than others, like Murrinh-Patha, Mati Ke and Tiwi in Northern Australia (chapters one and two), Yuchi, Mohawk, and Inuktitut in Northern America (chapters four, nine and ten), Provençal and Occitan in Southern France (chapter eight) or Yiddish in Canada and other countries (chapter twelve). However, a few of the cases he examines could be considered successful cases of language revitalization, like Welsh in Wales (chapter fourteen), Faroese on the Faeroe Islands and Hixkaryana in Northern Brazil (chapter thirteen). Included in the book are also instances of dead languages that have come back to life (Hebrew in Israel, chapter thirteen) or that a few enthusiasts are struggling to restore to life (Manx on the Isle of Man, chapter six). One minority language that is expanding in spite of lack of official support is Kriol, an English-based Creole spoken in Northern Australia (chapter two). As stated above, Abley does not just dwell on the languages and the history and culture of those speaking them, but also discusses some of the socioeconomic and political factors that are favouring language shift towards the dominant languages, English above all. The position of English as a global language and its role in the demise of smaller languages are discussed in chapter five. This chapter also touches on another language that could have become a world lingua franca: Esperanto, outlining its history and the ideals that led Ludwik Lejzer Zamenhof, its creator, to invent and promote it. Some theoretical issues are also included, particularly in chapter three, where Abley contrasts some of Chomsky’s theories with the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, and in chapter eleven where issues of language ecology are briefly discussed. In the first of these two chapters Abley does not hide his uneasiness with much of the determinism and universalism of the theories of Chomsky and other linguists, and he brings up some linguistic examples that may be easier to explain through some version of Sapir and Whorf ’s hypothesis, i.e. through the idea that the “world does show evidence of being constructed, to a significant degree, out of our linguistic experience” (50). In chapter eleven he highlights the relation between biological diversity and linguistic diversity and their importance. One curious example of how differently the world can be perceived and described in different languages
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is found in chapter seven, which deals mainly with the “condensed” verbs of the Boro language, spoken in Northeastern India. Even though Abley’s examples are all taken from just one source, a dictionary published in India in 1977, they are nevertheless fascinating: onguboy, for example, means “to love from the heart”, onsay “to pretend to love” and onsra “to love for the last time”. Other curious examples are gobram, “to shout in one’s sleep,” asusu, “to feel unknown and uneasy in a new place” and gobray, “to fall in a well unknowingly”! Much more than this can be found in Mark Abley’s entertaining, comprehensive and inspiring book, which I cannot but recommend, particularly to people who do not know much about the issues dealt with in the book. However, I think that even linguists who have worked in this area may find it interesting and inspiring, especially if they are not well acquainted with the economic and sociopolitical issues that lie behind language endangerment. Reviewer’s address The Language Centre Universiti Brunei Darussalam Jalan Tungku Link, Gadong BE1410 Brunei Darussalam
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About the reviewer Paolo Coluzzi, of Milan, received his MA in minority languages in Spain from the University of Exeter and his PhD in Italian sociolinguistics from the University of Bristol. At present he is a lecturer at the University of Brunei Darussalam. His articles have appeared in Language Problems & Language Planning, Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development and Modern Italy. His first book Minority Language Planning and Micronationalism in Italy: an Analysis of the Situation of Friulian, Cimbrian and Western Lombard with Reference to Spanish Minority Languages (Oxford: Peter Lang) was published in June 2007.
© 2008. John Benjamins Publishing Company All rights reserved
