Access to economic resources affects the languages people speak and vice versa. When people abandon a minority language in favor of a dominant language, it is usually because they perceive economic advantages or because economic changes lead to destabilization of the communities in which the minority language is spoken. Language maintenance efforts, too, depend on financial resources for such things as teacher training and employment, materials development, and technological support. On the other hand, the languages and dialects people speak help determine their access to jobs and education, as well as their ability to participate fully in society. The Cornell Conference on Language and Poverty will bring together specialists representing a wide range of disciplinary perspectives and a diversity of language areas for two days exploring the complex interactions of languages, speakers and societies in their economic context, and the implications of these interactions for the individuals and societal institutions which must take them into account. Day one will highlight the complex interconnections of language and poverty for a general audience. Day two will promote theoretical and practical exchange among linguists and people active in community-based language programs. NSF support includes travel award stipends for 20 students and other people from communities facing language-endangerment issues.
A better understanding of the interactions between language and poverty is important to the larger society as well as those directly connected to minority and endangered languages. Government and other funding agencies, even when favorably disposed toward endangered languages, often face difficult questions of priority. How are efforts to maintain indigenous languages to be valued relative to other societal needs? Is it feasible to promote minority languages by directing resources toward other economic needs? Where language survival seems unlikely, can resources be mobilized for documentation? What attention should be paid to the cultural impoverishment that results when a language dies? Governments, legal and educational systems must also contend with difficult questions having to do with accomodation of minority languages in education, public services (e.g.,licensing examinations), dissemination of information, official languages, and subsidizing efforts by minority language speakers to acquire the dominant language. Issues of language and poverty are not confined to the developing world but are encountered daily by US citizens and policy-makers.
