WFHB Bloomington Community Radio
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:00:20 — 34.5MB)
Host William Morris speaks with Samuel Obeng, professor of Linguistics and Director of African Studies at Indiana University about the extinction of languages in the world today. Samuel discusses the dynamics of how language groups become vulnerable to “majority languages”, especially in light of electronic global media that pushes a limited set of languages, specifically English. In addition to how languages can become extinct, Samuel also discusses how languages can be created, namely pidgin and Creole languages. Samuel also shares one his published poems and described the culture of names — and how names are given — in Africa.
