3. 報告者: マティアス・ブレンツィンガー (Matthias Brenzinger) (東京外国語大学 アジア・アフリカ言語文化研究所・客員教授) 4. 題 名: 「アフリカの多言語社会と危機に瀕した言語」(使用言語:英語) (Multilingualism and language endangerment on the African continent)
5. コメンテータ: 米田信子 (大阪女学院大学・准教授)
報告要旨: I will discuss the relationship between multilingualism and language vitality by focusing on the African continent. Various scenarios of language shift and different kinds of multilingualism will be looked at. Language repertoires vary significantly between different communities and also among the individual community members. Quite a number of scholars regard societal multilingualism as one of the indicators for language endangerment. The relation between multilingualism and language endangerment, however, is much more complex, and on the long run, minority language will only survive, if stable language use patterns can be established.