School was also once the enemy of tribal languages. Government boarding schools, where generations of Indian children were sent, aimed to stamp out native ways and tongues.
government can also not save language by neglect. Perhaps liberal arts education will preserve diversity?
The Confederated Tribes of Siletz Indians now have about 4,900 enrolled members and a profitable casino in the nearby resort town of Lincoln City.
we learned in class today that languages are not just a way of life, they are survival in economic terms. It is important that the community is able to provide for their needs in order to prevent individuals from leaving.
Just as words go extinct when the behavior or object associated with it is no longer practiced, the language goes away if the people are not using the language. Language is most likely to survive when it is the only language that can be used, or when it is the most common language.
In Israel there are Jews from Russia, English speaking countries and Europe and because they inhabit the same space they need to speak a common language besides their mother language to participate in civilization.
In terms of economic scarcity, when people cannot afford to speak a language, they may abandon it because they have immersed themselves in another culture completely, or because language is not economically meaningful anymore.
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