Say it in Abma

Abstract

Current research in endangered languages tends to focus on recording, analysing, and disseminating data that is useful to linguistic researchers, but not to students of linguistics or to other interested lay people. At the same time, the community generally has a poor understanding of what Linguistics is, and the type of work that linguists do. This lack of awareness perpetuates the larger challenge faced by the discipline, which is a shortage of qualified linguistic researchers worldwide. Because of this, many endangered languages disappear without ever being recorded or documented. Language death is irretrievable - the linguistic equivalent to loss of a biological species.