Gerald Roche – författare

Bordering Tibetan Languages: Making and Marking Languages in Transnational High Asia examines the complex interactions between state, ethnic, and linguistic borders in the Himalayas. These case studies from Bhutan, China, India, and Nepal show how people in the Himalayas talk borders into existence, and also how those borders speak to them and their identities. These ‘talking borders’ exist in a world where state borders are contested, and which is being irrevocably transformed by rapid social and economic change. This book offers a new perspective on this dynamic region by centring language, and in doing so, also offers new ways of thinking about how borders and language influence each other.

Bordering Tibetan Languages: Making and Marking Languages in Transnational High Asia examines the complex interactions between state, ethnic, and linguistic borders in the Himalayas. These case studies from Bhutan, China, India, and Nepal show how people in the Himalayas talk borders into existence, and also how those borders speak to them and their identities. These ‘talking borders’ exist in a world where state borders are contested, and which is being irrevocably transformed by rapid social and economic change. This book offers a new perspective on this dynamic region by centring language, and in doing so, also offers new ways of thinking about how borders and language influence each other.

The Routledge Handbook of Language Revitalization is the first comprehensive overview of the language revitalization movement, from the Arctic to the Amazon and across continents. Featuring 47 contributions from a global range of top scholars in the field, the handbook is divided into two parts, the first of which expands on language revitalization issues of theory and practice while the second covers regional perspectives in an effort to globalize and decolonize the field. The collection examines critical issues in language revitalization, including:

The volume also contains chapters on the kinds of language that are less often researched such as the revitalization of music, of whistled languages and sign languages, and how languages change when they are being revitalized. The Routledge Handbook of Language Revitalization is the ideal resource for graduate students and researchers working in linguistic anthropology and language revitalization and endangerment.

The Routledge Handbook of Language Revitalization is the first comprehensive overview of the language revitalization movement, from the Arctic to the Amazon and across continents. Featuring 47 contributions from a global range of top scholars in the field, the handbook is divided into two parts, the first of which expands on language revitalization issues of theory and practice while the second covers regional perspectives in an effort to globalize and decolonize the field. The collection examines critical issues in language revitalization, including:

The volume also contains chapters on the kinds of language that are less often researched such as the revitalization of music, of whistled languages and sign languages, and how languages change when they are being revitalized. The Routledge Handbook of Language Revitalization is the ideal resource for graduate students and researchers working in linguistic anthropology and language revitalization and endangerment.

Containing ballads of martial heroism, tales of tragic lovers and visions of the nature of the world, Long Narrative Songs from the Mongghul of Northeast Tibet: Texts in Mongghul, Chinese, and English is a rich repository of songs collected amongst the Mongghul of the Seven Valleys, on the northeast Tibetan Plateau in western China. These songs represent the apogee of Mongghul oral literature, and they provide valuable insights into the lives of Mongghul people—their hopes, dreams, and worries. They bear testimony to the impressive plurilingual repertoire commanded by some Mongghul singers: the original texts in Tibetan, Mongghul, and Chinese are here presented in Mongghul, Chinese, and English.

The kaleidoscope of stories told in these songs include that of Marshall Qi, a chieftain from the Seven Valleys who travels to Luoyang with his Mongghul army to battle rebels; Laarimbu and Qiimunso, a pair of star-crossed lovers who take revenge from beyond the grave on the families that kept them apart; and the Crop-Planting Song and the Sheep Song, which map the physical and spiritual terrain of the Mongghul people, vividly describing the physical and cosmological world in which they exist.

This collection of songs is supported by an Introduction by Gerald Roche that provides an understanding of their traditional context, and shows that these works offer insights into the practices of multilingualism in Tibet. Long Narrative Songs from the Mongghul of Northeast Tibet is vital reading for researchers and others working on oral literature, as well as those who study Inner Asia, Tibet, and China’s ethnic minorities. Finally, this book is of interest to linguistic anthropologists and sociolinguists, particularly those working on small-scale multilingualism and pre-colonial multilingualism.