Malaysia is a multilingual and multiethnic country with a substantial population of ethnic Chinese, who use standardized languages such as Malay, English, and Mandarin, as well as various Chinese ...dialects in their daily lives within and beyond Chinese communities. Cantonese is a community language that significantly impacts the lives of local Chinese in the city of Ipoh, Malaysia. This study aims to examine the vitality of Cantonese in Ipoh using the language vitality and endangerment (LVE) tool developed by UNESCO. Nine LVE-proposed factors reflecting the degree of endangerment were investigated. Using a survey method, 377 participants from various groups were randomly selected from the Chinese community in Ipoh, Malaysia during January 6 to February 5, 2022. The result shows that Cantonese in Ipoh is rated as “Unsafe,” indicating that measures should be taken to prevent its further decline. The result suggests that further research is needed to gain a clearer understanding of the factors affecting language shift and maintenance, as well as the potential and challenges of linguistic and cultural diversity in the contemporary world.
Plain Language Summary The purpose of the study was to assess the vitality and challenges facing the Cantonese language in Ipoh, Malaysia, a community where Cantonese has been traditionally spoken. The study used a variety of factors to assess the vitality of Cantonese, including language transmission, the number and proportion of speakers, domains of language use, government support, and community attitudes. The study found that while Cantonese has strong adaptability to new media and high-quality documentation, the lack of intergenerational transmission, decreasing proportion of speakers, and limited government support have made the language unsafe and endangered. The implications of the study are that immediate action is needed to protect the Cantonese language and promote its importance to younger generations. Encouraging intergenerational language transmission, increasing the proportion of speakers, and providing more government support for the language are essential to preserve its vitality. The study’s limitations include a small sample size and self-reported fluency levels, which may have resulted in variability in scores on language tests. The study also did not investigate the impact of digital media and technology on Cantonese use and learning. Further research is needed to provide a more nuanced understanding of the vitality and challenges of Cantonese in Ipoh and beyond, and to develop innovative approaches to language revitalization.
Zusammenfassung
Das von einer Arbeitsgruppe der „Deutschen Gesellschaft für Soziale Psychiatrie e. V. (DGSP)“ erstellte „Plädoyer für eine Transformation der Maßregeln der §§ 63 und 64 StGB“ (Feißt ...et al.
2022
) benennt eine Vielzahl von Problemen, mit denen der psychiatrische Maßregelvollzug (MRV) wie auch die forensischen Suchtkliniken konfrontiert sind. Es sind Probleme, die in vielen Punkten auch andere staatliche Institutionen für den Bürger haben: Überfüllung, bauliche Mängel, inadäquate Angebote für eine heterogene Klientel, Personalmangel. Zudem besteht die schwierige Aufgabe, Behandlung und Sicherung zu verbinden. Die DGSP zieht daraus die nihilistische Konsequenz, die Abschaffung des psychiatrischen Maßregelvollzugs und zugleich auch des Schuldstrafrechts zu fordern; alle gefährlichen Rechtsbrecher sollen ohne Berücksichtigung der Schuldfähigkeit ins Gefängnis.
Dieser Beitrag betrachtet die vorliegenden Probleme, die Heinz Kammeier (in diesem Heft) benannt hat, und überprüft den Gedanken, dass diese Probleme durch Abschaffung des Maßregelvollzugs gelöst werden können. Tatsächlich ist die Abschaffung nicht aus den Problemen ableitbar, sondern aus der in der Langfassung des „Plädoyers“ sichtbaren radikal antipsychiatrischen Haltung des psychologischen Mitarbeiters der dreiköpfigen Arbeitsgruppe. Folge der Abschaffung wäre eine Barbarisierung des Umgangs mit psychisch kranken Straftätern.
In the last few decades, there has been a remarkable discovery of new species of plants, invertebrates and vertebrates, in what have been called the new age of discovery. However, owing to ...anthropogenic impacts such as habitat conversion, many of the still unknown species may go extinct before being scientifically documented (i.e. ‘crypto-extinctions’). Here, by applying a mathematical model of species descriptions which accounts for taxonomic effort, we show that even after 250 years of taxonomic classification, about 3050 amphibians and at least 160 land mammal species remain to be discovered and described. These values represent, respectively, 33 and 3 per cent of the current species total for amphibians and land mammals. We found that tropical moist forests of the Neotropics, Afrotropics and Indomalaya probably harbour the greatest numbers of undescribed species. Tropical forests with minimal anthropogenic disturbance are predicted to have larger proportions of undescribed species. However, the protected area coverage is low in many of these key biomes. Moreover, undescribed species are likely to be at a greater risk of extinction compared with known species because of small geographical ranges among other factors. By highlighting the key areas of undescribed species diversity, our study provides a starting template to rapidly document these species and protect them through better habitat management.
Language vitality and endangerment theorizing and research have been focused mainly on whole languages, relegating their individual dialects to the background, on the one hand; and on using single ...scales in assessing vitality and endangerment, on the other. In this paper, however, we advocate a paradigm shift for more, better successes in this undertaking. Therefore, we aim to examine the degree(s) of vitality and endangerment of Gombe dialect of Fulfulde using multiple evaluative scales, both western and non-western. Prior to placing the dialect on these scales, we collected data from Fulfulde speakers of varied age ranges, all Gombe radio stations and listeners of their Fulfulde programs, using ‘insider’ participant observations, in-depth, semi-structured interviews with a proficiency test component (after which both the respondents and the researchers agreed on the proficiency levels of the former) and online surveys. Analysis of the data reveals that the vitality of this code is better viewed relatively rather than absolutely. Its subsequent placement on the evaluative scales only helps to corroborate this. Finally, while our analysis shows that dialects are just as place-able on these evaluative scales as whole languages are (notwithstanding the hitches characterizing the scales), we argue that, with sustained collective efforts, a dialect-focused evaluative framework is likely to be born in the foreseeable future.
Rising rates of extinction create an urgent need to identify the mechanisms and drivers of endangerment. One critical question is whether major phylogenetic lineages are equally at risk to the same ...threats. We used the IUCN Red List classification to explore the effect of four major threatening processes (habitat alteration, invasive species, climate change and overexploitation) on 7,441 species in four terrestrial vertebrate classes. As expected, species rated as vulnerable to a higher number of threats were also at greater risk of extinction. However, this pattern differed strongly among classes. Notably, invasive species and climate change were strongly associated with increased risk of extinction in birds but not mammals. These large‐scale differences might be artifacts of differing methodologies used by class specialists to classify species vulnerability; or might reflect biological differences. That ambiguity needs to be resolved, because it has strong implications for the assessment and amelioration of threatening processes.
Context
Biodiversity is severely decreasing at a global scale since several decades. There are significant changes in species community compositions, reductions of species richness and abundances of ...arthropods, as well as of arthropod biomass. Land use intensification and climate change are assumed to be main drivers causing biodiversity change and loss. However, proximate effects of land use, landscape configuration, topography and climate on species richness and species community composition were only rarely analysed.
Objective
We study the effects of current land cover, landscape structures and climate on butterfly and burnet moth species diversity and community composition across northern Austria (i.e. the federal state of Salzburg).
Methods
We compiled observation data of butterflies and burnet moths for the past 40 years. We divided faunal data, land cover data and data on climate into 5 × 5 km
2
grid cells. We classified all lepidopterans assessed into groups according to their distribution, behaviour, ecology and life-history.
Results
We found higher species richness and temporal community shifts in higher elevations, and where topographic heterogeneity is high. Habitat connectivity has a positive impact on ecologically specialised, sedentary, and endangered species. Mean temperature and precipitation positively influenced species richness.
Conclusions
Both, land-use and climate strongly shape biodiversity structures. In particular, landscape heterogeneity promotes the diversity of ecological niches, which subsequently accelerates species diversity, including specialist species. Agricultural intensification in higher elevations and at steep slopes is more difficult and therefore less attractive, and thus the level of biodiversity is still high. In addition, climate warming might lead to the accumulation of species in higher elevations. Our study further underlines the relevance of habitat conservation at lower elevations, where not all habitat types are conserved sufficiently.
This paper develops an account of the relationship between language endangerment and conflict violence by combining insights from the fields of political science and linguistics. We develop a ...theoretical account of the manner in which the violence and disruption of community life jeopardizes the viability of communities that speak endangered languages. Our goals for this paper are to synthesize the contributions linguists and political scientists have made to the study of language endangerment and political violence; develop a theoretical account of language endangerment; and utilize statistical analysis to correlate factors related to political conflict and violence with language endangered communities. We test our theoretical model on language endangerment across the municipalities of Colombia and find support for our hypotheses.
Documentary linguistics, also known as language documentation, a relatively new branch of Linguistics, advocates for the fundamental need to collect records of language use and practices in various ...forms from diverse genres for multiple purposes. Such purposes include language description, language development, language maintenance, and language revitalisation. Such a record of a language serves to feed not only linguistic research but also research in other disciplines, such as anthropology, history, and ethnography. Language documentation is recognized as an ultimate response to language endangerment. This paper explores language documentation with specific reference to Simpa, an under-described, minority language of Ghana. The paper reviews theories, approaches, methods, and tools of language documentation to highlight how they were employed and attuned to take care of the Simpa context. Thus, the discussion dilates on specific field methods and tools adapted for obtaining a balanced set of data from three complementary event types, viz., natural communicative events, staged communicative events, and elicitations, to build a language documentation corpus. Data processing, data annotation, and data management practices applied in building the corpus, as well as dissemination of the research outcomes are also addressed. Furthermore, fieldwork ethics used in the study are discussed. Finally, for consideration in future research, the paper reflects on some challenges that were encountered in documenting Simpa.
This paper analyses area endangered by the process of landslides is in the municipality of Sokobanja. The process of landslides is very important from the aspect of environmental protection, ...considering that it can occur both naturally and under the influence of anthropogenic factors. For the purposes of this analysis data about geological structure, relief characteristics of the terrain (slope, aspect and terrain curvature), distance from rivers, land cover and values of the bare soil index were processed in the GIS environment. The Probability Method (PM) and the Landslide Susceptibility Index (LSI) were used to calculate the predisposition in relation to existing landslides in the study area. The obtained results indicate a high degree of reliability of these statistical methods for landslide prediction.
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