![Speculative Grammarian Podcast artwork](https://is1-ssl.mzstatic.com/image/thumb/Podcasts113/v4/84/fd/c3/84fdc3f5-a196-1879-3696-5bd695afd894/mza_8943354376453876958.jpg/100x100bb.jpg)
Saving Endangered Languages with Prescriptivism
Speculative Grammarian Podcast
English - December 12, 2015 16:06 - 3 minutes - 3.08 MB - ★★★★★ - 11 ratingsSocial Sciences Science Comedy speculative grammarian specgram linguistics language humor satire satirical linguistics parody talk show linguistic news Homepage Download Apple Podcasts Google Podcasts Overcast Castro Pocket Casts RSS feed
Previous Episode: On the Mytholinguistic Significance of Butterflies
Next Episode: Selections from Hymns for the Reverent Linguist
Saving Endangered Languages with Prescriptivism; by Neil de Veratte; From Volume CLXXII, Number 4, of Speculative Grammarian, April 2015 — All over the world, languages are being lost at an alarming rate. Field linguists do their best to preserve these languages, but find their speaker communities apathetic. “Why should I learn Wotʃa-Korlitt?” they ask, “It’s Spanish I need to get a job.” We need to look at successful languages, whose speakers are engaged with their language, to see what endangered languages can learn from them. When we do, we inevitably find that the most successful languages are those which possess a tradition of prescriptivist grammar. (Read by Brock Schardin.)