“Living Fossils”: The Politics of Language Preservation in Huangshan, China

Ingebretson, Britta

doi:10.1111/jola.12332

Cited by 3 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 76 publications

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“…This mentality persisted into the twentieth century, when human blood samples collected via an apparatus of British colonial and metropolitan networks from remote regions were transported and stored to preserve biological information from indigenous communities seen as teetering on the brink (Bangham, 2014;Sommer, 2015;Radin, 2017). Even today, linguists have identified a trend in language preservation, in which eulogizing relics or "living fossil languages" presupposes their inevitable extinction and wards off efforts to protect such languages (Ingebretson, 2022). In the natural world as well, these expectations for extinction and change may explain some of the staying power of living fossil in the public eye.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Revealing the rise of a living fossil menagerie

Lidgard

Kitchen

2023

Front. Ecol. Evol.

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The living fossil concept continues to foster development of integrative research, as it has done since Darwin’s use of the term in 1859. It has been applied to a vast menagerie of biological entities across the kingdoms of life and at many levels in the biological hierarchy. Correspondingly, a number of primary living fossil criteria emerged and persisted all the while as disciplines, theories and practices of biology transformed. In this paper we attempt the first comprehensive analysis of the use of the term ‘living fossil’ from 1860 to the present. Employing a compilation of 719 publications and 853 unique entities, we examine: (1) patterns of change in the phylogenetic diversity of living fossils, their taxonomic ranks and groups, (2) the diverse subject areas in which living fossils play a role, and (3) the primary criteria used to designate living fossil status. Our analyses reveal how the menagerie has extended and diversified alongside technological developments in biological research. The average number of living fossil criteria applied per entity has escalated even more rapidly than the menagerie has expanded. We argue that the demonstrated persistence, ever-expanding scientific and public interest, and future utilization of living fossils reflects increasingly complex challenges to deep-seated expectations at the heart of a living fossil research agenda: omnipresent evolutionary change and inevitable disappearance or extinction.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Revealing the rise of a living fossil menagerie

Lidgard

Kitchen

2023

Front. Ecol. Evol.

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“…All narrators described their fangyan as “older” than standard Mandarin. This association of the fangyan with language history reflected a discourse pervasive in mainland Chinese language policy; language standardization serves as a marker of modernity, and the fangyan as reservoirs of cultural history (Ingebretson Forthcoming). This temporal contrast between standard Mandarin and the fangyan shaped narrators’ self‐identification because they regularly searched for alignments between different modes and language varieties.…”

Section: The Language Autobiographiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Topolects in Motion: Narrative Possibilities for Language Vitality among Mobile Chinese‐Canadians

Ward

Chow

2022

J Linguistic Anthropol

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This article examines the language autobiographies of 12 Chinese-Canadians to address how topolects (Ch. fangyan)-spoken language varieties marking place-based belongingformulate identity once removed from their original places. We found that narrators located topolects in their pasts and homelands, while associating standard Mandarin with mobility and the future. We argue that, by associating topolects and standard Mandarin with contrasting times and places, narrators reformatted prevailing standard language ideologies from mainland China to rationalize experiences of linguistic exclusion. Despite pressures for language standardization, the narrative grounding of topolects in kinship chronotopes offers possibilities for maintaining diverse Chinese languages amidst mobility. [Chinese languages, language and mobility, language autobiographies, language standardization, language vitality]

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“…However, Ingebretson has pointed out that warnings about imminent dialect loss may not necessarily help preserve dialects. Instead, such rhetoric may even contribute to the demise of the dialect by presenting its extinction as an inevitable outcome [13].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Assessing Language Vitality and Sustainability of Minor Chinese Dialects: A Case Study of Dapeng, a Hakka–Cantonese Mixed Dialect

Chen

2023

Sustainability

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The Dapeng dialect is a unique Hakka–Cantonese mixed dialect spoken by several thousand speakers in the Dapeng peninsula in Shenzhen, Guangdong, and Manhattan, New York. This study reviews language vitality assessment frameworks for their applicability to Chinese languages and assesses the sustainability of the Dapeng dialect using the UNESCO Language Vitality and Endangerment scale. Despite some factors indicating low vitality, an overall assessment suggests a sustainable and vigorous use of the local dialect in the Dapeng community. This study shows that not all minor dialects in China are severely endangered. It sheds light on the complexities of language sustainability and vitality in multilingual societies, emphasizing the importance of using appropriate evaluative frameworks for an accurate view of language vitality in specific sociolinguistic ecologies. This study also contributes to discussions about language maintenance and policy in China, particularly under the tension between Putonghua and local dialects in the context of language sustainability.

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“Living Fossils”: The Politics of Language Preservation in Huangshan, China

Cited by 3 publications

References 76 publications

Revealing the rise of a living fossil menagerie

Revealing the rise of a living fossil menagerie

Topolects in Motion: Narrative Possibilities for Language Vitality among Mobile Chinese‐Canadians

Assessing Language Vitality and Sustainability of Minor Chinese Dialects: A Case Study of Dapeng, a Hakka–Cantonese Mixed Dialect

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