Language revitalization

Degrees of language endangerment[edit]

Healthy/strong: all generations use language in variety of settings
Weakening/sick: spoken by older people; not fully used in younger generations
Moribund/dying: only a few speakers (non-children) remain; no longer used as native language by children
Dead: no longer spoken as a native language
Extinct: no longer spoken and barely has written records (if at all)

Another scale for identifying degrees of language endangerment is used in a 2003 paper ("Language Vitality and Endangerment") commissioned by UNESCO from an international group of linguists. The linguists, among other goals and priorities, create a scale with six degrees for language vitality and endangerment ^[1]. They also propose nine factors (six of which use the six-degree scale) to "characterizing a language’s overall sociolinguistic situation"^[1]. The nine factors with their respective scales are:

Intergenerational language transmission
- safe: all generations use the language
- unsafe: some children use the language in all settings, all children use the language in some settings
- definitively endangered: few children speak the language; predominantly spoken by the parental generation and older
- severely endangered: spoken by older generations; not used by the parental generation and younger
- critically endangered: few speakers remain and are mainly from the great grandparental generation
- extinct: no living speakers
Absolute number of speakers
Proportion of speakers within the total population
- safe: the language is spoken by 100% of the population
- unsafe: the language is spoken by nearly 100% of the population
- definitively endangered: the language is spoken by a majority of the population
- severely endangered: the language is spoken by less than 50% of the population
- critically endangered: the language has very few speakers
- extinct: no living speakers
Trends in existing language domains
- universal use (safe): spoken in all domains; for all functions
- multilingual parity (unsafe): multiple languages (2+) are spoken in most social domains; for most functions
- dwindling domains (definitively endangered): mainly spoken in home domains and is in competition with the dominant language; for many functions
- limited or formal domains (severely endangered): spoken in limited social domains; for several functions
- highly limited domains (critically endangered): spoken in highly restricted domains; for minimal functions
- extinct: no domains; no functions
Response to new domains and media
- dynamic (safe): spoken in all new domains
- robust/active (unsafe): spoken in most new domains
- receptive (definitively endangered): spoken in many new domains
- coping (severely endangered): spoken in some new domains
- minimal (critically endangered): spoken in minimal new domains
- inactive (extinct): spoken in no new domains
Materials for language education and literacy
- safe: established orthography and extensive access to educational materials
- unsafe: access to educational materials; children developing literacy; not used by administration
- definitively endangered: access to educational materials exist at school; literacy in language is not promoted
- severely endangered: literacy materials exist however are not present in school curriculum
- critically endangered: orthography is known and some written materials exist
- extinct: no orthography is known
Governmental and institutional language attitudes and policies (including official status and use)
- equal support (safe): all languages are equally protected
- differentiated support (unsafe): primarily protected for private domains
- passive assimilation (definitively endangered): no explicit protective policy; language use dwindles in public domain
- active assimilation (severely endangered): government discourages use of language; no governmental protection of langauge in any domain
- forced assimilation (critically endangered): language is not recognized or protected; government recognized another official language
- prohibition (extinct): use of language is banned
Community members' attitudes towards their own language
- safe: language is revered, valued, and promoted by whole community
- unsafe: language maintenance is supported by most of the community
- definitively endangered: language maintenance is supported by much of the community; the rest are indifferent or support language loss
- severely endangered: language maintenance is supported by some of the community; the rest are indifferent or support language loss
- critically endangered: language maintenance is supported by only a few members of the community; the rest are indifferent or support language loss
- extinct: complete apathy towards language maintenance; prefer dominant language
Amount and quality of documentation.
- superlative (safe): extensive audio, video, media, and written documentation of the language
- good (unsafe): audio, video, media, and written documentation all exist; a handful of each
- fair (definitively endangered): some audio and video documentation exists; adequate written documentation
- fragmentary (severely endangered): minimal audio and video documentation exits at low quality; minimal written documentation
- inadequate (critically endangered): only a handful of written documentation exists
- undocumented (extinct): no documentation exists

Factors in successful language revitalization[edit]

David Crystal, in his book Language Death, proposes that language revitalization is more likely to be successful if its speakers

increase the language's prestige within the dominant community;
increase their wealth and income;
increase their legitimate power in the eyes of the dominant community;
have a strong presence in the education system;
can write down the language;
can use electronic technology.

In her book, Endangered Languages: An Introduction, Sarah Thomason notes the success of revival efforts for modern Hebrew and the relative success of revitalizing Maori in New Zealand (see Specific Examples below). One notable factor these two examples share is that the children were raised in fully immersive environments^[2]. In the case of Hebrew, it was on early collective-communities called kibbutzim^[3]. For the Maori language In New Zealand, this was done through a language nest^[4].

^ ^a ^b http://www.unesco.org/new/fileadmin/MULTIMEDIA/HQ/CLT/pdf/Language_vitality_and_endangerment_EN.pdf
^ Thomason, Sarah (2015). Endangered Languages: An Introduction. United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press. p. 6. ISBN 978-0-521-68453-8.
^ Thomason, Sarah (2015). Endangered Languages: An Introduction. United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press. pp. 156–159. ISBN 978-0-521-68453-8.
^ Thomason, Sarah (2015). Endangered Languages: An Introduction. United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press. p. 165. ISBN 978-0-521-68453-8.

[:0-1] ttp://www.unesco.org/new/fileadmin/MULTIMEDIA/HQ/CLT/pdf/Language_vitality_and_endangerment_EN.pdf

[2] Thomason, Sarah (2015). Endangered Languages: An Introduction. United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press. p. 6. ISBN 978-0-521-68453-8.

[3] Thomason, Sarah (2015). Endangered Languages: An Introduction. United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press. pp. 156–159. ISBN 978-0-521-68453-8.

[4] Thomason, Sarah (2015). Endangered Languages: An Introduction. United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press. p. 165. ISBN 978-0-521-68453-8.

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