Date of Graduation

1998

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Type

MA

College

Eberly College of Arts and Sciences

Department

World Languages, Literatures and Linguistics

Committee Chair

Daniel F. Ferreras

Committee Member

John C. Super

Committee Member

Johan Seynnaeve

Abstract

From the days of the Old Testament and Tower of Babel through the nineteenth century efforts to create artificial languages, the human race has longed for a universal language. Its purpose would be to bind the linguistically diverse people of the world into a cohesive whole. With English apparently well on its way to becoming just such a universal language, many people are now growing concerned at the prospect. For them English is an imperial language that threatens the world’s rich cultural and language complexity. Linguistic rights activists have now begun trying to counter this universalizing trend with language repair and maintenance programs. They speak of diversity’s great importance and compare the loss of languages to the loss of species in the natural world. This thesis begins by examining these important issues from a sociohistorical point of view. After first studying the universalizing trend mentioned above, the focus will then be on recent linguistic rights activities and their impact. In order to provide deeper insight into the issue, a modern world, economic perspective will be employed.

With these factors in mind, I have chosen to focus on the plight of Native Americans. They provide an interesting case study: they are some of the world’s most traditional people, yet directly confronted by the United States, a country that has long been a catalyst for change. Six tribes were randomly chosen, three large, three small. Demographic data from the 1990 United States Census was analyzed in order to develop the empirical 2 component of this study. From the beginning, a very interesting inverse relationship came to light between Native American tribes that, linguists saw as healthy and development economists saw as impoverished. More specifically, the focus was on the connection discovered between cultural/linguistic traditions among Indian tribes and the socio-economic consequences of their traditionalism. In essence, the issue is one of unity versus diversity, a fundamental fault line in the logic of the human race today. It cuts to the very core of modern thinking. A focus on language helps provides a key for understanding the great depth and complexity of the issue. Yet understanding is but one factor in the equation, the really hard part is doing something about it.

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