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Title: Searching for Aboriginal Languages: Memoirs of a Field Worker by Robert M. W. Dixon ISBN: 0-7022-1933-9 Publisher: University of Queensland Pr (Australia) Pub. Date: January, 1983 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $14.95

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Average Customer Rating: 5 (1 review)

Rating: 5
Summary: A must-read
Comment: This is a fascinating book.

First off, it presents a close-up view of what the last stages of language death are like -- the language is spoken by only two or three people very old people. They may speak it well, or may speak it haltingly, or may only remember a few phrases. And then they die, and there went the language. Since most of the languages in the US and in the world are headed toward that fate in the next forty years, I think it's time people get to see what it looks like, and what a great loss it is.

Second off, this book is the closest I've seen anyone manage to explaining what it is that we linguists do. If only this book got half the press that Steven Pinker's ramnblings get!

And third off, this book recalls some of the daily experiences of the author's travels in rural Australia, among the Aborigines. As one rarely reads anything about Australian Aborigines, or rural Australia in general, this alone makes it interesting. I, for one, had no idea that the Aborigines were, until recently, in a situation combining some of the worst features of Apartheid and of what the US was doing to its Natives in the 19th century.