The Decay of a Language
The Case of a German Dialect in the Italian Alps
©2004
Monographs
266 Pages
Summary
Topic of this volume is Pomattertitsch, a German dialect which is doomed to extinction. This Allemanic (Walser) dialect is spoken at Formazza, a tiny Alpine community in Italy, and after centuries of semi-secluded existence is now undergoing major transformations due to the rapidly declining number of its speakers and the limited range of its functions.
Within the framework of language decay and death this analysis focuses on phenomena of linguistic variation at a morphosyntactic level. This comprehensive study includes a large body of spoken data collected from informants of different age groups and with different levels of language fluency and thus displays a unique picture of an endangered language.
Within the framework of language decay and death this analysis focuses on phenomena of linguistic variation at a morphosyntactic level. This comprehensive study includes a large body of spoken data collected from informants of different age groups and with different levels of language fluency and thus displays a unique picture of an endangered language.
Details
- Pages
- 266
- Publication Year
- 2004
- ISBN (Softcover)
- 9783039102129
- Language
- English
- Keywords
- Linguistics Walser dialects Community of Formazza Pomattertitsch Deconstruction of language Valle Formazza Mundart Deutsch Sprachverfall Verb morphology Language minorities /Italy
- Published
- Bern, Berlin, Bruxelles, Frankfurt am Main, New York, Oxford, Wien, 2004. 266 pp., num. tables, 1 map
- Product Safety
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