ABSTRACT
This chapter tackles the main theme of the analogy between the death of languages and end of rivers. It opens with Carl Sandburgs poem, colorado rivers do not technically die because they are not biologically alive to begin with. The chapter contextualizes by ethnographic example within the growing body of work that has explored the language/nature connections in the context of endangerment paradigms and examines the way of empirical efforts have developed. It explores, how the slippage of metaphorical and empirical connections between biological and linguistic endangerment create an underlying tension in the literature. Several authors have called specific attention to what they say are remarkable overlaps in the global distribution of languages and biodiversity, and prompted speculation about the empirical links potentially responsible for this correspondence. The way to understand the connections between language death and end of a river is to look at how both are mediated by power relations and economic marginalization.
