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- Important to recognise that linguistic and cultural diversity of the pacific region is under threat - Book is in three parts: firstly identifying the languages; secondly describing the language communities and thirdly maintaining and reviving languages
The Southwest Pacific from Southern China through Indonesia, Australia and the Pacific Islands constitutes the richest linguistic region of the world. That rich resource cannot be taken for granted. Some of its languages have already been lost; many more are under threat. The challenge is to describe the languages that exist today and to adopt policies that will support their maintenance.
This book, reflecting UNESCO’s emphasis on the preservation of endangered languages, is an important contribution to the literature on language diversity. Most of that literature currently deals with Western societies and occasionally with Africa, the Middle East and India. The articles in this book widen and enrich the field. This collection of articles should become a standard in analyses of language policy.
Richard D. Lambert, Professor of Sociology Emeritus, University of Pennsylvania
Reports and studies on the linguistic situation in a number of countries in this volume are informative and thought provoking.
Picus Sizhi Ding, Macao Polytechnic Institute, in Linguist List 17.2290
Denis Cunningham is Assistant Principal in the Victorian School of Languages. He has published widely in journals, reports and conferences around the world, and was made a Fellow of the Australian College of Educators in 2001.; David Ingram is Professor and Executive Dean in the School of Applied Language Studies in Melbourne University Private, Melbourne Australia. He has published extensively in applied linguistics.; Kenneth Sumbuk is Professor and Executive Dean of the School of Humanities and Social Sciences at the University of Papua New Guinea. His research specialty is in Papuan languages, Pidgin and Creole linguistics and dying languages.
