Recently we have added notes to clarify how to classify works on endangered languages and responses to language endangerment (approved at EPC meeting 141 in October).
The key notes are found at the interdisciplinary number, 306.44 Language:
Class here anthropological linguistics, ethnolinguistics, sociolinguistics; endangered languages; responses to endangerment of languages, e.g., language documentation, language revitalization
Class effects of language endangerment on specific linguistic elements with the linguistic element, e.g., effects of language endangerment on morphology 415.9
Class documentation of a specific language or language family with the language or language family, e.g., a grammar of Koroshi (a dialect of Baluchi) 491.598
As Rebecca Green, former Dewey Editorial Program Manager, wrote to EPC:
Causes of language endangerment include natural catastrophes, famine, disease; war and genocide; overt repression; and cultural/political/economic dominance (Austin and Sallabank, p. 5). Of these, the latter category is the most common.
Responses to the shrinking diversity of human language have included language documentation, that is, an attempt to record the basic vocabulary and syntax of a language before it dies, and language revitalization, an attempt to reverse the decline of native speakers of the language.
We see endangered languages as a sociolinguistic phenomenon, with 306.44 Language (with anthropological linguistics, ethnolinguistics, and sociolinguistics named in its class-here note) as the best number for interdisciplinary works. Sociocultural factors are typically prominent in both the decay and the attempted revival of an endangered language, further supporting the choice of an interdisciplinary number under 306.44 over a number in the 4xx hierarchy.
Austin, Peter K., and Julia Sallabank. 2015. The Cambridge handbook of endangered languages. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Because endangered languages and responses to endangered languages are in a class-here note at 306.44, standard subdivisions can be added, and subdivisions of 306.44 are available, for example:
306.442 Anthropological linguistics, ethnolinguistics, sociolinguistics of a specific language
306.449 Language planning and policy
At 410 Linguistics are these notes:
Class here . . . . interdisciplinary works on language documentation
For sociolinguistics, language documentation as a response to endangerment of languages, see 306.44
At 417.7 Historical linguistics (Diachronic linguistics) is this note:
Class endangered languages in 306.44
Here are examples of works classed in 306.44 Language:
Endangered languages: An introduction (306.44)
Language death: Factual and theoretical explorations with special reference to East Africa (306.4409676—built with 306.44 plus T1—09 plus T2—Uganda and Kenya, which has note “Class here East Africa”)
Reversing language shift in the Far North: Linguistic revitalization in Northern Scandinavia and Finland (306.44948—built with 306.449 Language planning and policy plus T2—48 Scandinavia and Finland)
Note: The Cambridge handbook of endangered languages should also be classed in 306.44.
Here are examples of works classed in 400s:
A grammar of Tundra Nenets (494.4—built with 494 Altaic, Uralic, Hyperborean, Dravidian languages, miscellaneous languages of south Asia plus numbers following T6—94 in T6—944 Samoyedic languages)
A grammar of Chiapas Zoque (497.43—built with 497.4 Penutian, Mayan, Mixe-Zoque, Uto-Aztecan, Kiowa-Tanoan languages plus numbers following T6—974 in T6—9743 Mixe-Zoque languages)
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