Reversing Language Shift: How to Re-awaken a Language Tradition: Proceedings of the Conference FEL Xiv, 13-15 September 2010, Carmarthen Wales ... Foundation for Endangered Languages, Band 14)

Inhaltsangabe

Language revitalisation is now receiving greater attention from academics, language planners, politicians, institutions and organisations worldwide. A step further than documentation, language revitalisation, supported by active policy, offers the possibility of reversing a shift that threatens over half of the world s languages. Many take language vitality to be symbolic of national and cultural identity. In the Celtic regions, in particular, governments are taking a leading role in the struggle to reverse language shift by various efforts including attempts to increase the number of speakers of the respective languages. Wales provides a good vantage point from which to consider prospects for reversing language shift. It has experience in gauging levels of political support at local, national and international levels. Census figures show an increase in the number of users of Welsh, especially amongst the younger generation, which can be attributed, like the language revival in Estonia, to the education system. However, some academics doubt whether such increases in speaker numbers lead to increased language fluency and use. While efforts to achieve the Welsh Assembly's goal of a bilingual Wales have led to demands for greater legislative powers and autonomy on linguistic issues, the constant net immigration into the traditional heartlands is steadily reducing the density of Welsh-speakers there. Language revitalisation requires the collaboration of a wide range of expertise. Institutional, political, and local support all play crucial roles, along with educationists and language planners. But how can these, working together, have practical effects in the daily language usage of ordinary people, and how can they achieve the goal of slowing down language erosion and revitalising language tradition? Welsh-speakers have been in the forefront of last few decades of active resistance to language decline.

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