Language revival
Language revival is the revival, by governments, political authorities, or enthusiasts, to recover the spoken use of a language that is no longer spoken or learned at home. Language death is the process by which a language ceases to be used by the people who formerly spoke it. Language revival seeks to bring back a language that is dead or endangered.
Perhaps the most celebrated example of successful language revival is the Hebrew language, which now exists as a living tongue in daily use in the state of Israel. Other official attempts to revive endangered languages, such as the promotion of the Irish language in the Republic of Ireland, have met with less success. Some other endangered languages that have been the subject of revivalist campaigns by enthusiasts or governments include:
In Europe, in the 19th and early 20th century, local languages' use declined as central governments imposed their language as the standard (this is the case of France, Spain or Italy). In the last decades, local nationalism and EU's multicultural policy brought local languages in atention, so, in some European regions, the local languages became official languages, along with the national language.
More than 750 languages have already gone extinct around the world. Still others have only a few known speakers; these languages are endangered languages.
The UN estimates that more than half of the languages spoken today have fewer than 10 000 speakers and that a quarter have fewer than 1 000 speakers and that, unless there would be some efforts in maintaining them, in the next hundred of years most of these will become extinct.
The Endangered Language Fund is a fund dedicated to the preservation and revival of endangered languages.
See also: List of extinct languages, List of endangered languages.
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