Talk:Language revitalization

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"in lieu of"?

Number 5 under "Steps in reversing language shift" reads:

Where the state permits it, and where numbers warrant, encourage the use of the language in lieu of compulsory state education.

I am a native speaker of English, and I do not understand how a language could be used "in lieu of" education. Is this a standard expression in some form of English? I am from the US, and it makes no sense to me, but perhaps it makes sense in some other dialect(s). I see how a language could be used "in lieu of" the official state language in compulsory education, and would recommend changing the wording here.

Jalopeura (talk) 10:18, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

Old Norwegian

Why is Old Norwegian a revived language? Old Norwegian is the dialect of Old Norse spoken in Norway, that later evolved into modern Norwegian. I don't see how you can "revive" such a language. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Kiven (talk • contribs) 06:42, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

Akkurat! I've nothing against Old Norwegian but it has no business here. Robert Greer (talk) 03:43, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

If Old Norwegian had to go, then so do Greek Katharevousa, Latin, and Sanskrit, which have all evolved into other modern languages. Suomichris (talk) 21:45, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

The entry seems to refer to Modern Norwegian (in the form of standardised written languages), especially Nynorsk. Nynorsk isn't based on Old Norwegian, however (otherwise it would be much more similar to Modern Icelandic), but on modern dialects that are still spoken. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 02:38, 23 August 2013 (UTC)

Indigenous languages of the Americas

"Indigenous languages of the Americas" should be replaced with specific languages -- I'll make a list and add it here. --babbage 22:57, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

Ladino?

The Ladino article says that it is in decline everywhere. Is this correct? Should it be removed from this page? Jd2718 20:55, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

Nynorsk?

To be revived, mustn't a language be endangered? Jd2718 21:00, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

Has apparently been removed, but its presence could've been justified on the grounds that it was a recovered language of the nineteenth century (more precisely, an amalgam of dialects which may or may not have been in danger of dying out). Robert Greer (talk) 03:46, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

Taking this out again. Nynorsk, as I understand it, is the written form of the the "Scandinavian" spoken in Norway at a certain time. It thus isn't any more 'endangered' than 16th century English, and doesn't have a place on this page. Suomichris (talk) 21:45, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

Your understanding is wrong. Robert has explained it quite correctly. Nynorsk is a (relatively) standardised written language based on an amalgamation of modern Norwegian dialects that are still spoken, so your comparison makes no sense at all.

(I might note that Nynorsk was more artificially constructed than other standard languages, but written standards in general have aspects of planning, making the boundaries notoriously murky and leading to a continuum between written standards and auxlangs/conlangs, at least the class based on groups of related languages/dialects. Standard German, for example, also has aspects of many different German dialects, including even Low German, resulting in a hybrid that is distinctive and notably different, on every linguistic level, from any traditional German dialect ever spoken. However, that's the outcome of a more organic development, which, on the other hand, still involved a lot of conscious meddling with the language. This aspect is often severely underestimated. Just think of the neologisms in Basque, some of which were made up out of thin air by Larramendi and others, especially so-called purists – it's not usually called purism, though, but instead praised for enriching and furthering the language, once coinages prove successful and become deeply imbedded in the language, such as creations of medieval German monks –, or think of Turkish, where neologisms from various sources, including wholesale invention, were also introduced successfully; or think of Estonian, for which Johannes Aavik not only invented words, but even certain word forms, yes, morphology, some of which became an accepted part of the language.)

That said, Ivar Aasen didn't really set out to revitalise Norwegian as such (given that it was not seriously endangered in the 19th century – let alone extinct – as a spoken everyday language), but its written tradition (the term Nynorsk, New Norwegian, was a conscious reference to Mellomnorsk, Middle Norwegian, as Nynorsk was supposed to be its modern continuation).

(However, Aasen may have felt that Norwegian was very vulnerable to Danish influence and mixing because of the close relatedness and resemblance of the two languages. Aasen's goal was indeed to sharpen the profile of Norwegian and to help to preserve its distinctiveness and identity, though when writers and printers intentionally worked to make Swedish and Danish orthography and vocabulary diverge from the 16th century on, that was basically the same thing! Or just think of how the differences between Czech and Slovak are consciously being exaggerated now, let alone even more similar languages or languages that are basically different national standards of the same dialect.)

I'd say Nynorsk is a somewhat special case. It's more akin to Occitan and Low German revivalism or to the cases of Irish and Scottish Gaelic, but here the complication is that the languages in question are seriously endangered, and were already endangered to an extent when the revivalist movements started, at least more than Norwegian was in the 19th century (though to Aasen and certainly others, it must sure have looked like Danish was about to replace Norwegian completely in a few generations; the Bokmål-type hybrid of Norwegian core structure with lots of Danish influences, especially in lexicon, must already have existed at the time anyway). But here as well, the boundaries are murky. Whether Norwegian was in serious danger of going extinct in the long term in the 19th century is a matter of subjective judgment, even for us, despite our hindsight. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 03:36, 23 August 2013 (UTC)

Catalan

I wouldn't say Catalan has ever been an endangered language as a whole, particularly in Catalonia. It was a banned language, which is different. Nowadays it may be considered endangered, though, in France and Italy. Purplefire 08:06, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

Galician

I don't understand how Galician, spoken and/or understood by the vast majority of the population at the time it was made a joint co-offciial language following the demise of the Franco regime could ne "revived". Whether or not it is actually enjoying a social revival is also a moot question. Surely this article should be claerer about wahat is meant by "revival" as opposed to standardisation of fully normal social usage of a language. Neal —Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.60.79.142 (talk) 18:48, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

Languages Listed?

A lot of the languages listed seem odd to include as examples of 'language revitalization', especially Czech (with 12 million speakers), Basque (with more than 1 million), and Taiwanese (with between 15 and 49 million speakers). On the ground language revitalization is usually working with only a few speakers (if any) on languages. I wonder about making two categories for this page: a section for languages with language populations of speakers, but which are still under threat (such as Basque), and languages, for example, of North America, with a very low number of speakers. These situations warrant different treatments, I think. It would also be nice to have citations that these languages listed are 'endangered'.

Thoughts? Suomichris (talk) 21:45, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

• You miss one important point: some of the languages you consider inapropriate for the list had indeed been endangered and revitalised in the past. For example, Czech in the 19th century. Nowadays, Czech does have 10 million speakers or so, but this concerns the present time, not the 19th century.

Nairam (talk) 21:46, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

And when was it endangered? The Czech language article makes no mention of it ever being so.Yobmod (talk) 17:14, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

Czech National Revival is relevant for the revitalization of Czech. Man vyi (talk) 14:44, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

Unicted for months moved from article for citing:

• Ainu
• Belarusian
• Coptic
• Cornish
• Hakka
• Hawai'ian

• Leonese
• Manx
• Scottish Gaelic
• Tlingit
• West Frisian

I'm just glancing through the contents list of Fishman (2001). Irish, Frisian, Basque, Catalan and Ainu all appear in chapter titles. I've tried to widen the definition at the beginning of the article. Fishman uses the term threatened, or weaker language. The majority of the world's languages probably fall into that category. But listing them all here is not going to be very useful. Perhaps we should just focus on key examples, of which Hebrew has to be one. Cornish and Irish revitalisation are also described in Wikipedia, so there seem like useful examples for further reading. Gailtb (talk) 14:07, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

References

Split this article?

In thinking about this article yesterday, I wonder if there isn't space for two articles. 'Language revitalization' on the one hand, to cover endangered languages and attempts to revive them, and 'Language revival', which could cover efforts to promote languages such as Latin, Ancient Greek, Sanskrit, etc., which are not dead in that they have descendant languages.

Thoughts on this? Another possibility would be to put a separate section in 'language revitalization' to clarify how it is different than efforts to promote Latin, Sanskrit, etc.

Suomichris (talk) 19:34, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

A separate section sounds good to me. At the very least, I'd say that a qualifier would require actual communication in the language, not merely (for example) translating or writing things into the language. For instance, I'm a speaker of Old English, and there are a few people whom I communicate with, and this is often our medium of choice. — ᚹᚩᛞᛖᚾᚻᛖᛚᛗ (talk) 14:07, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

No criticism?

There's no section on criticism of language revitalization, while there probably should be. Many people have criticized it as being divisive and keeping people poor or isolated from the larger world culture, as it isolates them by preventing them from communicating as well. Titanium Dragon (talk) 23:42, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

I do not think such section is needed. As it speaks of reviving languages, not promoting monolingualism and poor education. Nothing prevents bein open to the world numerous cultures and economy in your own language. Easy example : Wikipedia in many endangered languages. Though critics might have a purpose if the article refers to a specific case promoting monolingualism. Which I think it is not the case for the moment. 70.50.46.202 (talk) 08:24, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

While I happen to believe that revitalization is a worthwhile goal, I support the need for a section on criticism of the endeavor. Such a section would be useful even to supporters of revitalization, as it would help them to be more informed. babbage (talk) 06:59, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

Disputed

Many of the supposedly "revived" languages discussed here were never even endangered, let alone near extinction. Either the definition is wrong, or the examples are, either way this article is original research and in desperate need of citations.Yobmod (talk) 16:31, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

Anglo-Saxon

I'm just asking (I have no intention of inserting this into the article at all), would the recent minor revival of Old English be considered a legitimate (or even semi) language revitalization? I know of several people who speak it, and some of us actually use it as a preferred means of communication, but there arent any modern native speakers– yet. So far, its primary use is among those interested in ancient European history, as well as adherents to Heathenry. — ᚹᚩᛞᛖᚾᚻᛖᛚᛗ (talk) 13:59, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

Interesting question but I would hazard a guess that it doesn't count as language revival if a community is not aiming to establish at least a nucleus of native speakers. Manx is small but definitely has always aimed for neo-native speakers. Same goes for Palawa kani. Akerbeltz (talk) 21:17, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

Criticism

I removed the line about many linguists not caring about revitalization because the source given, a book on revitalization by Tasaku Tsunoda is not likely to support such an assertion. I haven't read the book, but I checked a peer-reviewed book review, written by another linguist who works in revitalization, who did not mention or seem concerned about anything in the book being against revitalization efforts. I suppose there could be a line or two about linguists' lack of concern as a description of the problems revitalization efforts face, but in that case those linguists should probably be referenced. As it was, it appeared that Tsunoda was against revitalization, which is disingenuous. Feel free to add the line back in if you have a more reasonable source, though. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Joshisanonymous (talk • contribs) 21:21, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

Keep in mind the possibility that Tsunoda talks about other linguists, not himself. Moreover, reading a review isn't an acceptable substitute for checking what the book actually says, so you shouldn't be surprised that your edit was undone. That said, you do have a point: a verbatim quote from the book would be helpful. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 04:12, 23 August 2013 (UTC)

Fair enough. I've since checked the cited pages on Google Books and he is in fact referring to other linguists. Shouldn't the page at least refer directly to Tsunoda's sources instead of Tsunoda, though? Joshisanonymous (talk) 17:19, 25 August 2013 (UTC)

That depends on what these sources say, and how many there are. It doesn't make sense to refer to, say, a dozen or even only half a dozen linguists who say they don't care about revitalisation because 1) it would be cumbersome to list them all 2) these sources would need to be checked first (to avoid misrepresenting them too), and they may not be freely available in Google Books or elsewhere online 3) we should use summaries and review-style articles 4) we should not use primary sources 5) the sampling is not necessarily representative (what if there are 20 more linguists who say they do care?) 6) we should not engage in compilation (synthesis!) or OR. There's nothing wrong with referring to Tsunoda's reporting of other linguists' attitudes, and in fact, it is the much easier and better solution. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 21:34, 25 August 2013 (UTC)

"Lovers"

We're told that "some lovers" are revitalising Manx. This strikes me as comical (and incorrect) use of English, since "lovers" without any further qualification (such as "art lovers" or "pasta lovers") can really only mean people in a sexual relationship! Of course the meaning isn't unclear, but surely "some enthusiasts" (or something else) would be better? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 46.189.28.182 (talk) 17:27, 24 April 2016 (UTC)

The case of Italian--not a great example

From the article:

"In addition, literary languages have sometimes risen to the level of becoming first languages of very large language communities. An example is standard Italian, which originated as a literary language derived from the language of 13th-century Florence, especially as used by such important Florentine writers as Dante, Petrarch and Boccaccio. This language existed for several centuries primarily as a literary vehicle, with few native speakers; even as late as 1861, on the eve of Italian unification, the language only counted about 500,000 speakers, many non-native, out of a total population of c. 22,000,000. The subsequent success of the language has been through conscious development, where speakers of any of the numerous Italian languages were taught standard Italian as a second language and subsequently imparted it to their children, who learned it as a first language.[citation needed]"

While this is true, it is very ironic to use as an example in this article because the success of standard Italian came at the expense of the other languages of Italy... Alternatively, this could be considered dialect leveling since the languages that it was replacing were all closely related to standard Italian. I propose that a better example be sought. Alázhlis (talk) 07:49, 14 January 2017 (UTC)

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Cornish

This seems to be unnecessarily tokenistic as an article. There's been so much written about the successful revival of Cornish, its recognition by the UK government, its funding, large-scale publication of literature, introduction on public signage, swearing in of MPs from Cornwall in Cornish, .... (I could go on).

The rather lame 'several attempts' seems to be damning with faint praise or implying failure. Very POV. Suggest either removing the section until someone can take the time to deliver something more objective or at least a partial upgrade. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 46.233.77.71 (talk) 11:23, 10 March 2018 (UTC)

Current Revitalization Efforts

Hello, I have added/started a section addressing current revitalization efforts. I think it will be beneficial to distinguish examples of successful revitalization from current efforts going on around the world. Kc cotton (talk) 17:01, 5 June 2019 (UTC)

Criticism

Just out of curiosity: should Kenan Malik's criticisms be included in this section?

I am asking because he isn't a linguist, unlike McWhorter. Additionally, his criticism seems to ignore a lot of the cultural aspects of language; it's too simplistic and reduces language to a utilitarian object. Basically, I don't really think he has a strong case against revitalization. While I am for revitalization, I do think the criticisms need to be more thought-provoking than his to warrant being used on this page.

On the other hand, McWhorter's criticism are much more fitting.

Hello all, I will be briefly editing this page for my ANTHROPOLOGY 473 Living Languages class. Please feel free to add/change anything I add or let me know of errors etc. Thanks, Lindsay LindsayBotterill (talk) 19:59, 27 October 2019 (UTC)

The five degrees of language endangerment

A UNESCO language vitality and endangerment document from 2003 identifies 6 degrees of language endangerment with descriptive names for each degree. I'm thinking that because the current five stages don't have a source to link back to, I'll add these in as an alternative method of assessing a language's degree of endangerment

Chaalb123 (talk) 04:27, 14 December 2020 (UTC)

The same UNESCO document identifies factors that we would apply the degrees of endangerment to so that one could assess the language's overall level of endangerment. Given the previous discussion on this talk page about how a language is classified for revitalization (previously endangered or not), I'm thinking this may be helpful here for context about how a language becomes classified as endangered

Chaalb123 (talk) 04:34, 14 December 2020 (UTC)

Many linguists (i.e. Warner et al) have started using "dormant" instead of "extinct" -- maybe this distinction should be reflected, too.

Lukewarm Cabbage (talk) 18:14, 18 October 2021 (UTC)

"Dormant" and "extinct" can both be useful terms. "Though a dormant language has no proficient users, it retains some social uses. In contrast, an extinct language is no longer claimed by any extant community as the language of their heritage identity. Extinct languages are lacking in both users and societal uses. Some extinct languages, such as Latin, may continue to be used as second-languages only for specific, restricted, often vehicular, functions, that are generally not related to ethnic identity."

References

Factors in successful language revitlization

Hi everyone, I'll briefly be editing this page for my Indigenous Studies class on Endangered Languages and Language Revitalization. Feel free to change, add, or tag me to correct errors.

I'm going to add to this section a brief description of the role that immersive learning plays in language revitalization - giving the examples of modern Hebrew and Maori

Chaalb123 (talk) 05:14, 14 December 2020 (UTC)

Inclusion of sign languages

This article would benefit from the inclusion of efforts to document, preserve, and revitalize sign languages as well. The vast majority of the world's documented sign languages face an especially potent combination of threats, including the rarity of generational transmission, small population size, scarcity of use in educational contexts, low social prestige, decreasing population size (due in part to the increasing availability in hearing technologies that lead to language shift favoring spoken languages), and contact with (& corresponding language shift toward) more globally-dominant sign languages (among which American Sign Language is the primary offender).

Good references include:

Matthall.research (talk) 15:57, 19 April 2022 (UTC)

References

Requested move 10 April 2023

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: not moved. (closed by non-admin page mover) -- Maddy from Celeste (WAVEDASH) 20:21, 18 April 2023 (UTC)

---

Language revitalization → Language revival – Per WP:COMMONNAME. Also just makes more sense.90.252.42.166 (talk) 19:47, 10 April 2023 (UTC)

sorry, meant to propose this for moving to Language revival 90.252.42.166 (talk) 19:49, 10 April 2023 (UTC)

No worries, fixed the template/→ part for you. Best! TartarTorte 21:26, 10 April 2023 (UTC)

Well spotted. I think revitalisation isn't just less used, it is wrong, because it has a different meaning. Roger 8 Roger (talk) 22:47, 10 April 2023 (UTC)

Oppose. "Revitalization" is by far the more common term in the literature: just have a look at the article's references section, there are twice as many texts with that in its title than with "revival". – Uanfala (talk) 07:30, 11 April 2023 (UTC)

• Oppose The current title gets twice as many results as the proposed one. NGRAMS indicates that at one point "revival" was more popular, but "revitalization" overtook it around 2000. This is not even counting "revitalisation" results, which could make it even more lopsided. (t · c) buidhe 07:36, 11 April 2023 (UTC)

• Comment This is not about common usage in which more than one option, meaning the same thing, is viable, making a google search misleading, because the words mean different things, not the same thing. First, the meanings according to a wiki dictionary check - "As verbs the difference between revitalise and revive is that revitalise is to give new (l), (l), (l) or (l) to something while revive is to return to life; to recover life or strength; to live anew; to become reanimated or reinvigorated." Thus, it depends what this article is about. Bringing back from extinction (Hebrew, Sanskrit etc) is for 'revive', whereas reversing a decline (Maori, Welsh etc) is for 'revitalise'. This article looks to be about language revival. An option would be to start a new article about language revitalisation. If they are currently intermingled, we should separate them. Roger 8 Roger (talk) 09:08, 11 April 2023 (UTC)

  As the article makes clear, this distinction between language "revival" and "revitalisation" is only made by some authors. I'm agnostic on whether we need separate articles for the two concepts, but if we decide to split, then the new article will have to be at Language revival, because that's the narrower topic. And, as far as I can see, the majority of content in the current article is about reversing language shift, not about bringing back dead languages. – Uanfala (talk) 10:39, 11 April 2023 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Spanish in the Philippines

Spanish is in no way experiencing a revival in the Philippines. Just because former president Gloria Macapagal Arroyo signed a decree re-introducing the language as an elective in schools does not mean the language is seeing an increase in usage. In fact, the number of Spanish speakers has declined from a little less than 500,000 during her administration to 400,000 in 2020. Additionally, more students are choosing to picking up Mandarin and Japanese instead. As of 2020, nearly as many students chose Japanese as their foreign language elective versus Spanish, and Mandarin is the fastest growing. The average Filipino could not care less about reintroducing Spanish into schools or society. What's more, the section is written with a very biased stance. There has been no government promotion of the language since Arroyo's administration and "demand for Spanish-speakers"? Absolutely not. - 139.135.147.25 (talk) 15:14, 26 January 2024 (UTC) 139.135.147.25 (talk) 15:14, 26 January 2024 (UTC)