How can I share in exploring the linguasphere?
With the publication of the first (framework) edition of the Linguasphere Register of the World's Languages and Speech Communities, an appeal is now launched for the support of the Linguasphere programme, in terms both of material support and of worldwide scientific participation. The help of institutions and of individual "linguasphere observers" around the world will be needed in order to compile a single worldwide computerised map of languages and linguistic communities at the beginning of the new millennium, and to ensure that it will accurately record the changes and upheavals which have taken place in linguistic and ethnic distribution during the century that has just closed. This observation of actual change will be an essential dynamic element of the Linguasphere Mapbase of the world's languages if it is to assist us in assessing likely trends during the early part of this century.
With the generous support of the British Academy, the Linguasphere Observatory is now able to display extracts from the Linguasphere Register on this website (go to
Download Extracts). The purpose is not only to provide a free information-service to users of this site but, in particular, to create a forum for the gathering and collation of new and revised information on the world's languages and speech-communities.
Any information or comments on the languages and communities covered by each extract will be gratefully received at :
(by e-mail) comments @ linguasphere.org
(by post) The Linguasphere Observatory, Hebron SA34 0XT Wales (UK).
The nature and workings of speech as a global phenomenon, and the understanding of the world's linguistic landscape, deserve to be treated within the already crowded secondary school curriculum, alongside the study of individual languages themselves. There is a need to produce educational materials which will open up the study of a new "linguistics of the 21st century" both to schoolchildren and to their teachers throughout the world.
Schools and colleges all over the world can assist in improving and completing the Linguasphere Register, and in contributing to the compilation of the Linguasphere Mapbase of the world's languages, by observing and respecting and recording the complexity of language-use in the society around them.
Surftipps:
- Leasing ohne Anzahlung des neuen 1er BMWs.
- Glossar technischer Begriffe des Bauwesens
© 2004 The Linguasphere Observatory.