Creating Orthographies for Endangered Languages

It’s always nice to receive a new publication in the post!

The book Creating Orthographies for Endangered Languages, edited by Mari C. Jones and Damien Mooney, is an edited volume arising in part from Mari’s work with the Cambridge Endangered Languages and Cultures Group and its associated Cambridge Conferences on Language Endangerment. I always enjoy conferences which include perspectives on both contemporary and historical studies of language contact and language death, and these events always spark off new ideas for me.

The publication is a chapter I wrote jointly with my colleague Nick Zair about Oscan in Italy during the period of the Social War. Scholars have often said that Oscan experienced a resurgence during this period, as a symbol of local pride and non-Roman identity – but did it? We use evidence from the Tabula Bantina and other documents to dig a bit deeper into the evidence and what the orthography of Oscan inscriptions in this period really tells us about the attitudes of Oscan-speakers to Rome.

You can view the table of contents and find out more about the book on the Cambridge University Press website.