Ecology and diversity: A comparative trip from biology to linguistics

Abstract

As the new century begins, humanity can approach the question of preserving both biological and linguistic diversity with a certain unity of purpose. Today there is a widespread awareness that many animal and plant species are threatened by extinction, and a growing realization as well, that many of the linguistic varieties that our species has developed throughout its history are in danger of disappearing. Given the simultaneous nature of these two large-scale phenomena and the apparent coincidences of the processes at work, it is tempting to conceptualize them together...