On thin ice: language, culture and environment in the Arctic ...

• Main Author: Grenoble, Lenore A.
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Language Documentation and Description 2014
• Subjects: Arctic; Tromsø; Arctic Council
• Online Access: https://dx.doi.org/10.25894/ldd203; https://www.lddjournal.org/article/id/1130/

Arctic indigenous languages provide excellent examples for studying issues of language sustainability. In the Arctic, as elsewhere, language vitality is linked to overall vitality of the speakers, their physical, mental and social well-being, and their ability to determine their own lifestyle, means of subsistence, and language. The issues of how communities can sustain languages and linguistic ecologies are closely linked to issues of sustainable human development, a position which is foundational to the Arctic Council Sustainable Development Working Group’s Work Plan for 2009-2011 (SDWG 2009) and clearly articulated in the Tromsø Declaration (2009). In the present paper I consider language sustainability within the context of community sustainability and argue that the two are inseparable. That is, language sustainability is at once an integral part of overall cultural sustainability while, at the same time, language usage needs to be understood within the broader context of sustainability. Accelerated ... : Language Documentation and Description, Vol. 9 (2011) ...