Newton Liu

Language go extinct when they are no longer spoken in their own communities and families, especially when parents stop speaking their language to their children. This is usually because a dominant language offers more economic or social…

My target language Catalan belongs to the Western Romance branch of the Indo European language family, descending from Vulgar Latin. Its exact classification is debated — some linguists group it with Gallo-Romance (alongside French and Occitan),…

I was initially drawn to the Catalan language because of my interest in Football Club Barcelona. I often saw the club’s motto, Més que un club. At first I just assumed it was Spanish. One day I learned that it was, despite the difference coming down…

Looking back at my initial learning plan, I think things are progressing steadily, though not without some adjustments. One of the biggest changes has been a shift toward more consistent, smaller daily practice on multiple tasks rather than occasional long study sessions on one specific skill. On my plan I was trying to memorize the words and grammar every day, but then I realized that it is not enough just memorizing them. I have to add in listening, writing and speaking in order to practice and fully understand how to use them. This has made my learning feel more manageable and effective. I’ve also started incorporating more materials such as videos, conversations, and real-world texts, which has helped me engage more naturally with the language.I’ve definitely integrated strategies and insights from class into my approach. For example, I’m more conscious of balancing fluency and accuracy, and I’ve been applying techniques like contextual guessing and focusing on meaning before…

Languages go extinct, and die, when the number of native speakers becomes dangerously low and there is little to no written information documenting these languages to preserve its continuity. This can happen for a number of reasons, the economic necessity of speaking a more dominant language like English, and smaller native community sizes are just two of these reasons that both David Harrison and Anna Luisa Daigneault mention in When Languages Die and How to Resurrect Dying Languages respectively. Linguists can prevent this extinction and help preserve languages by (a) creating immersive environments organized by local stakeholders, (b) encouraging active community involvement in language revitalization, (c) prioritizing presence in digital communities/spaces, (d) and supporting acts of decolonization, Daigneault argues. Immersive environments, or “language nests” are environments where toddlers/beginners learn from fluent or semi-fluent elders on a consistent basis. Active community…

Newton Liu

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