Here is a video about a man telling the story of his aboriginal language, which is critically endangered.

Here is a video about a linguist who did some case studies about endangered languages and recorded what they sounded like before their last speakers would die.

Today, I decided to start making a bit more research about language revival and revitalization. I also reviewed my past work and realized that I mentioned a source which explained the difference between these two concepts, without actually explaining it! So, there it is: "Language revival is the resurrection of a "dead" language, one with no existing native speakers. Language revitalization is the rescue of a "dying" language. " This quote is from a website dedicated to the revitalization of indigenous languages throughout the americas called Native Languages of the Americas: Endangered Language Revitalization and Revival, which also said: "There has only been one successful instance to date of a complete language revival, creating a new generation of native speakers without even one living native speaker to help. (That instance was the reincarnation of Hebrew in modern Israel, and there were many extenuating circumstances associated with it.) However, there have been successful partial revivals-where a no-longer-spoken language has been revived as a second language sufficiently for religious, cultural, and literary purposes. There have also been successful language revitalizations, where languages in decline have recovered. It may sound silly and New Agey to say that the prestige of a language and the self-esteem of its speakers plays a pivotal role in revitalization, but it has been proven again and again. Navajo, for instance, was in steep decline until the 40's, when the language, once deemed worthless, was used by the Navajo Code Talkers to stymie the Germans and Japanese in World War II. With Navajo's validity as a real, complex, and useful language suddenly nationally acknowledged, its usage shot up, and today this language, once on the brink of extinction, is in good health."

Most of the linguistic community says that we should strive to save all dying languages by all means necessary because they represent a certain way of viewing the world through the eyes of certain peoples that will disappear forever if we let the language die. However, most regular people that do not have a very extended knowledge of what revival and revitalization efforts entail would say that we should let some, or even all endangered die and that we should not revive dead languages in order to promote a more efficient communication by using mainstream languages.

Source #8 used for the view of regular people: Malik, Kenan. “Let Them Die: Let them die: The Preservation of Dying Languages and Cultures is Pointless and Reactionary. People Want to Join Modernity.” Prospect Magazine, 20 Nov. 2000, www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/magazine/letthemdie.

The very first argument that is given against efforts of revitalization and revival is that the more languages die off, the easier it gets for the planet to communicate. Some say that “things would be improved … if everyone in the world spoke just one language”, which would simply mean that if all the world’s populations were reduced to speaking only one language, they would have much less trouble communicating and understanding each other, which would most likely result in less linguistic conflicts (Tsunoda 158). Another main argument presented by those who welcome the disappearance of languages is that revival and revitalization efforts demand too many resources. Engaging in this process means that an immense amount of time, energy and people have to be mobilized. They also bring up that most linguists themselves are not concerned with language endangerment, that not even one in twenty linguists engages in revival and/or revitalization efforts and that “[a]rguably the single most fundamental obstacle, …, is an absence of mobilizing will on the part of the profession” (Tsunoda 158). Another argument is that the mass media is not concerned with the endangerment of languages as it is, for example, with endangered species. For example, an endangered species losing its last specimen would be much more documented in the newspapers or elsewhere than an endangered language losing its last speaker (Tsunoda 158). The opponents also argue that revival and revitalization efforts are not supported by most governments because they cost too much and because they do not see the value of languages in terms of cultural heritage. They claim that “linguistic diversity creates extra costs in translation, duplication, etc.” and that people prefer to “preserve traditional performing arts, handcrafts, and the like” than languages (Tsunoda 159). Some also believe that some communities could not want to keep their

traditional language alive either because it has become useless or because they would prefer to privilege modernity. They even say that some communities are completely against revitalization efforts being done on their language and that “old people may not seize upon an opportunity to have their language recorded” (Tsunoda 160). Sometimes, the Universal Declaration of Linguistic Rights is brought into this side of the debate to say that “[i]f it is a right to maintain one's traditional language, wouldn't it also be a right to abandon it?” (Tsunoda 160). Coming back to the opposing point of view which was mentioned in the previous paragraph, those who believe that language and culture are in fact independent from each other claim that “ethic identity (of which language is an important emblem) often brings political problems for nations” (Tsunoda 161). What they mean here, is that there can be conflicts between linguistic groups in a nation that is supposed to have only one cultural identity. For those that still believe that language and culture are inseparable, trying to revive or revitalize a language would mean being obliged to try and revive or revitalize its associated culture too, which would make the process way too difficult, tedious and resource-demanding to even attempt. In summary, opponents to the revival and revitalization efforts mainly state that trying to salvage these languages is a waste of time and resources for something that is not worth it.

It is up to you, as languages students and, and now as aware citizens, to make up your own mind about the issue at hand and to decide whether or not we should try to save all languages, only some of them or even none of them. I don't which side all of you might want to choose. What I do know however, is that by getting people aware of how languages become endangered or dead, some might just end up being a bit more careful in the way they, on a personal level, treat minority languages who might be facing extinction.

As a few last words, I will say that I really enjoyed sharing this topic with my fellows students and that my research was so complete that I could even reuse its sources for another project in another class! I hope you enjoyed reading this blog and that the subject was interesting enough for your horizons to be widened!

For a complete view of the Universal Declaration of Linguistic Rights, check out (Source 9): https://culturalrights.net/descargas/drets_culturals389.pdf

To conclude this essay, I will say that even I have not made up my mind on the issue yet: I cannot decide if it would be morally right or wrong to proceed with these efforts or to, instead, leave the languages’ fates up to time and circumstances only. Although I do believe that languages should be kept alive because they represent an important part of one’s cultural identity that should not be lost or destroyed, I also would find the world way easier to live in if the entire Earth’s population were to be reduced to speaking the 100 languages with the actual biggest number of speakers rather than the 6,000 to 8,000 languages that are spoken around the globe now. As nearly half of the world’s languages are expected to die within the next century, we will soon be forced to get to a consensus and to take a global decision as to whether or not it would be ethically and morally right to not make any language revival and revitalization efforts, even when knowing that we do have the required technologies to proceed with them.

For further knowledge on revival and revitalization , you can look up (Source 10, especially sections 2.2 and 3!) : https://oxfordre.com/linguistics/view/10.1093/acrefore/9780199384655.001.0001/acrefore-9780199384655-e-8#acrefore-9780199384655-e-8-div1-3