Indigenous Language Revitalization

Language revitalization is an area of study and a social movement that emerged in response to the endangered status of Indigenous and minority languages around the world. Endangered languages are often described as moribund, meaning that their speakers are beyond childbearing age, or as sleeping or dormant, meaning that the languages have no native speakers but have written and/or audio documentation and a living heritage language community, and thus the potential to be revived. The process through which intergenerational language transmission breaks down—what linguists call language shift—is occurring at an escalating pace worldwide, with an expert UNESCO panel predicting the demise of up to 90% of the world's 6,900 languages by the end of the 21st century. The majority of lost languages will be Indigenous ...