Preface p. ix
1 Language revitalization as a global issue p. 1
1 Introduction p. 1
2 Assessing language vitality p. 3
3 Terminology p. 13
4 Levels of language endangerment and loss p. 16
5 Why revitalization? p. 19
2 Issues in language revitalization p. 21
1 Introduction p. 21
2 Macro-variables p. 22
2.1 The extra-national level p. 23
2.2 The national level p. 25
2.2.1 Language policy p. 26
2.2.2 Language attitudes p. 30
2.2.3 Education policies p. 32
2.2.4 Regional autonomy p. 33
2.2.5 Federal support p. 34
2.3 Regional variables p. 35
2.3.1 Regional languages p. 35
2.3.2 Language density p. 36
3 Micro-variables: the local level p. 38
3.1 Language attitudes p. 39
3.2 Human resources p. 41
3.3 Religion p. 41
3.4 Literacy p. 43
3.5 Financial resources p. 44
4 Case study: Cornish p. 45
5 Establishing appropriate goals p. 48
3 Models for revitalization p. 50
1 Introduction p. 50
2 Total-immersion programs p. 51
2.1 Te Kohanga Reo, the language nest p. 52
3 Partial-immersion or bilingual programs p. 55
4 The local language as a second, "foreign" language p. 56
5 Community-based programs p. 58
6 Master-apprentice program p. 60
7 Language reclamation models p. 63
8 Documentation as revitalization? p. 68
4 Case studies p. 69
1 Languages of the North: Siberian native languages and Soviet policy p. 70
2 Shuar (South America) p. 78
3 The Mohawk Immersion Program in Kahnawa:ke (Canada) p. 86
4 Hawaiian p. 94
5 Literacy p. 102
1 Introduction p. 102
2 Models of literacy p. 103
2.1 Autonomous literacy p. 104
2.2 Vai literacy as a counterexample to autonomous literacy p. 106
2.3 New Literacy Studies p. 108
2.3.1 Local and social literacies p. 109
2.4 Functional literacy p. 110
3 Literacy in language revitalization p. 113
3.1 Why literacy? p. 116
3.1.1 Prestige p. 116
3.1.2 Empowerment p. 117
3.1.3 Literacy as a basic human right p. 118
3.2 Arguments against literacy p. 118
3.2.1 Shifting from an oral to a written culture p. 118
3.2.2 The lack of a written tradition p. 120
3.2.3 Transitional literacy p. 121
4 Instituting local literacy p. 122
4.1 Attitudes p. 123
4.2 Assessing the prospects for successful local literacy p. 126
4.3 Creating a context p. 127
4.4 Standardization p. 129
5 Literacy teachers p. 133
6 Conclusion p. 135
6 Orthography p. 137
1 Introduction p. 137
2 Writing systems p. 139
3 Linguistic and cognitive considerations p. 140
4 Social issues p. 142
5 Underdifferentiation and functional load p. 146
6 Tone p. 149
7 Standardization of orthographies p. 151
7.1 Motivations for standardization p. 153
7.2 Implications of standardization p. 154
7.3 Process of standardization p. 156
8 Recommendations p. 158
7 Creating a language program p. 160
1 Preliminaries p. 160
1.1 Assessment of resources p. 160
1.2 Assessment of language vitality p. 161
1.3 Assessment of language variation p. 166
1.4 Assessment of needs, goals, and attitudes p. 170
1.4.1 Assessing attitudes p. 171
1.4.2 A reality check on surveys p. 173
1.4.3 Goals and needs p. 174
2 Potential problems and how to avoid them p. 176
2.1 Problems that occur internal to the community p. 176
2.2 External barriers p. 178
3 Updating the lexicon p. 180
4 Creating a literacy program p. 184
4.1 Literacy assessment p. 184
4.2 Creating a written language p. 186
4.3 Creating materials p. 187
5 Teacher training p. 189
6 The role of technology p. 190
7 The role of the outsider p. 192
7.1 The academic p. 193
7.2 The missionary-linguist p. 196
8 Evaluation and long-term prognosis p. 197
9 Sample survey questions p. 198
9.1 Language vitality p. 198
9.2 Variation p. 199
9.3 Attitudes p. 199
9.4 Basic literacy survey p. 200
9.5 Program evaluation p. 201
10 Checklist of procedures p. 202
Appendix Online resources p. 205
References p. 207
Index of languages p. 222
General index p. 225
