The unique characteristics of dying languages

Many languages threatened with extinction have characteristics which are often unique for that specific language.  When a language dies out, valuable linguistic information is lost concerning the form which the language can take.  Prof. Dr Maarten Mous wishes to make an inventory of these characteristics in a new European line of research.

Prof. Dr Maarten Mous: 'You can't just submit a proposal to EUROCORES.'

Descriptive and theoretical linguistics
The idea for this project, which has been named BABEL, comes from Maarten Mous, professor of African Linguistics at Leiden University.  He wants to use BABEL to reduce the distance between descriptive and theoretical linguistics.  Both disciplines of linguistics still operate too much within their own niche.  Language describers are - to exaggerate slightly - the romantic adventurers who sometimes isolate themselves for months in the most inhospitable areas of the world in order to study the language of a primitive folk. And theoretical linguists - at home at their desk - peacefully gather language data in order to formulate general theories.

EUROCORES The acronym BABEL stands for Better Analyses Based on Endangered Languages.It is a so-called EUROCORES Programme (European Collaborative Research Programmes Scheme) from the European Science Foundation (ESF). The ESF is the partnership between the European organisations for scientific research, of which NWO is a member. An initial proposal has to be submitted by scientists from different countries. The scientific committee of the ESF makes a a selection from these proposals.  BABEL was the only proposal ito be selected in 2007 in the field of humanities.  Then, at least ten countries have to agree to support the proposal. This agreement has to be supported with a substantial sum of money as a subsidy.  Only then is the theme open for project applications  This took place last Thursday.  In the second phase, concrete research proposals can be submited.  An application has to be made by researchers from at least three countries participating in the project  Applications for BABEL can be submitted until the end of September.  After this, the applications will be assessed per country by the ESF.  The scientific organisations in the relevant countries are then responsible for the subsidies.   BABEL is supported by 17 countries.  The supporting countries do not have to be European.  The United States also participates in BABEL.

Language comparison
Both disciplines make language comparisons, but here, too, there are considerable differences.  Language describers are primarily interested in the genetic relationship between different languages.  They reconstruct the historical development of language families, and construct family trees.  Theoreticians, on the other hand, are interested in  typological relationships.  They make comparisons in order to arrive at general statements about language.  To do this, they generally work with a small corpus of languages which they know (well), primarily 'modern'  European languages and somewhat larger non-European languages, such as Japanese.

Bridge
'That's unfortunate,' Mous believes. 'The two disciplines can benefit one another.' With BABEL he wants to bring the two together.  Mous first approached NWO with his idea to apply for an exension to the Endangered Languages project which has just come to an end. NWO's response was that he should try to obtain European funding.  'That was easier said than done,' says Mous.  'You can't just submit a proposal to EUROCORES.'  

Language analysis
'The major difference between BABEL and previous themes is that there is a clear integration between the two disciplines of linguistics,' Mous explains.  'Within this theme, there will be a number of projects which work with primary data, both new and archive material, in order to focus on language analysis. The results will be used to broaden and correct the structure and nature of human language.' 

Interrogative sentences
He mentions some examples of striking examples of insights from descriptive linguistics which are able to enrich the theoretical basis of linguistics.  'Linguists for a long time assumed that interrogative sentences, whatever language they were in, were recognisable from the characteristic rising intonation at the end of a sentence. This is true for all the better known languages, but research into different 'indigenous' languages has demonstrated that this is not necessarily the case. There are languages which do not have any rising intonation for questions, and in other languagesa question can be recognised from omitting part of the sentence.' It is apparently more complicated than had been assumed.  

Evidentialiyt
Mous mentions an example:  'In the Trio - an Indian language from Surinam - there is what is called evidentiality.  This is a particular grammatical category in verb conjugation. As a speaker of Trio, you are obliged to indicate whether you know something based on your own personal experience, or whether you have heard it from a third party.  It's possible to do this in Dutch, too, but only by paraphrasing it.  In Trio, there are different verb forms for this, and you always have to use one of these.' It is this kind of example which makes it clear that human language is more complicated than we previously thought.  Including threatened languages in theoretical research broadens the general insights into language.