List of revived languages
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Revived languages are those which, having experienced near or complete extinction as either a spoken or written language, were intentionally revived and have eventually regained some of their former status.
The most frequent reason for extinction is the marginalisation of local languages within a wider dominant nation state, which might at times amount to outright political oppression. This process normally works alongside economic and cultural pressures for greater centralisation and assimilation. Once a language has become marginalised in this way, it is often perceived as being "useless" by its remaining speakers who associate it with low social status and poverty, and consequently fail to pass it on to the next generation.
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[edit] Basque
The region in which Basque is spoken is smaller than what is known as the Basque Country, or Euskal Herria in Basque. Basque toponyms show that Basque was spoken further along the Pyrenees than today. Basque experienced a rapid decline in Navarre during the 1800s. Today Basque holds co-official language status in the Basque regions of Spain: the full autonomous community of the Basque Country and some parts of Navarre. Basque has no official standing in the Northern Basque Country of France and French citizens are barred from officially using Basque in a French court of law.
[edit] Belarusian
The whole nation of Belarusians was "invisible" 150 years ago, with the area's people being known as Litvins, from the name of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, to whom the Belarusian land belonged. The nation was under heavy Polonization, followed by Russification. The language recovered after the Russian Revolution, followed by another period of neglect.
A second chance of revival appeared after the collapse of the Soviet Union, followed by significant increase of interest in Belarusian culture, language and historical heritage. The government of Alexander Lukashenko has been accused of associating these interests with opposition to his policy of union with Russia. As of 2005, Minsk, the capital of Belarus, does not have a single school with education carried out in the Belarusian language.
[edit] Catalan
Whilst never endangered, Catalan was previously unwelcome in its host country. After the disappearance of the institutions of the Aragonese empire in 1714, the Spanish Bourbonic dynasty began a policy of linguicide against Catalan. During the 19th century some cultural associations with strong support of the population began to make efforts to revive the language. During Francisco Franco's administration, the policies of linguicide were revived, but following his death and a return to democracy in Spain, the situation has changed considerably and Catalan is now one of the most successful cases of a revived language. It must be noted, though, that Catalan was always spoken in a familiar-popular level during the various linguicide epochs.
[edit] Cornish
Cornish lost most of its official status following the Protestant Reformation but lingered on in rural parts of West Cornwall, United Kingdom, until the late 18th century. There were some records of the language (mainly in its medieval form) to allow it to be revived to an extent (in spite of a limited lexicon) in the 20th century. The revival continues to gain strength, although accompanied by often bitter disputes over spelling and exactly what type of Cornish should be used.
[edit] Czech
Czech language was being replaced by German in general and official use in the Austrian Empire. During the 18th and 19th century, efforts were made to expand the vocabulary and revive the language in a process called the Czech National Revival.
[edit] Estonian
- Further information: Estonian literature
Cannot the tongue of this land
In the fire of incantation
Rising up to the heavens
Seek for eternity?
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- Kristjan Jaak Peterson
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Those lines have been interpreted as a claim to reestablish the birthright of the Estonian language.(c.1.100.000 speakers nowadays) Kristjan Jaak Peterson(1801-22) the first student at then the German-language University of Tartu to acknowledge his Estonian origin, is commonly regarded as a herald of Estonian national literature and considered the founder of modern Estonian poetry. His birthday on March 14 is celebrated in Estonia as the Mother Tongue Day.[1]
The domination of Estonia after the Northern Crusades, from the 13th century to 1918 by Germany, Sweden, and Russia resulted few early written literary works in Estonian language. Writings in Estonian became significant only in the 19th century with the spread of the ideas of Age of Enlightenment, during the Estophile Enlightenment Period (1750-1840). Although Baltic Germans at large regarded the future of Estonians as being a fusion with the Baltic Germans, the Estophile educated class admired the ancient culture of the Estonians and their era of freedom before the conquests by Danes and Germans in the 13 century. [2]
After the Estonian War of Independence Estonian language became the state language of the newly independent country. When the Soviet Union occupied Estonia in 1940, the status of the Estonian language changed overnight. [3] In the second half of the 1970s, the pressure of Russification and bilingualism intensified. However, state subsidies for Estonian philology studies were higher in the Estonian SSR than now in the independent Estonia. The Russian language was termed as ‘the language of friendship of nations’, and was taught to Estonian children as early as in kindergarten. At the same time teaching Estonian to non-Estonians was considered unnecessary[4] During the Perestroika era The Law on the Status of the Estonian Language was adopted in January 1989. The collapse of the Soviet Union led to the restoration of Republic of Estonia's independence. Estonian language became again the only state language in Estonia, Russian speakers being forced to use it in all aspects of life.
[edit] Galician
Galician is a language of the Western Ibero-Romance branch, spoken in Galicia, an autonomous community with the constitutional status of "historic nationality."
From the 8th century, Galicia was a political unit within the kingdoms of Asturias and Leon, but was able to reach a degree of autonomy at certain times in the tenth, eleventh and twelfth centuries. Galician-Portuguese was the only language in spoken use. Written texts in Galician-Portuguese have only been found dating from the end of the 12th century, because Latin continued to be the literate language.
In the Middle Ages, Galician-Portuguese was a language of culture, poetry, and religion throughout not only Galicia and Portugal, but also Castile (where Castilian was used mainly for prose).
Portugal became independent in the 13th century while Galicia was annexed by the kingdom of Castile, leading to a separation between the languages. After this separation, Galician was considered provincial and was not widely used for literary or academic purposes until its renaissance in the mid-19th century. With the advent of democracy, Galician has been brought into the country's institutions, and it is now co-official with Spanish. Galician is taught in schools, and there is a public Galician-language television channel, TVG.
The linguistic status of Galician with respect to Portuguese is controversial. Some authors, such as Lindley Cintra,[5] consider that they are still dialects of a common language, in spite of superficial differences in phonology and vocabulary. Others, such as Pilar Vázquez Cuesta,[6] argue that they have become separate languages due to major differences in phonetics and vocabulary usage, and, to a lesser extent, morphology and syntax. The official position of the Galician Language Institute is that Galician and Portuguese should be considered independent languages. The standard orthography is noticeably different from the Portuguese one partly because of the divergent phonological features and partly due to the use of Spanish orthographic conventions.
Spain has recognized Galician as one of Spain's four "official languages" (lenguas españolas), the others being Castilian (also called Spanish), Catalan (or Valencian), and Basque. Galician is taught at primary and secondary school and used at the universities in Galicia. Further, it has been accepted orally as Portuguese in the European Parliament and used as such by, among others, the Galician representatives José Posada, Camilo Nogueira and Xosé Manuel Beiras.
[edit] Hawaiian
On six of the seven inhabited islands of Hawaii, Hawaiian was displaced by English and is no longer used as the daily language of communication. The one exception is Niʻihau, where Hawaiian has never been displaced, has never been endangered, and is still used almost exclusively. Native speakers of Niʻihau Hawaiian are able to use a manner of speaking among themselves which is significantly different from the Hawaiian of the other islands, so different that it is unintelligible to non-Niʻihau speakers of Hawaiian.
Efforts to revive the language have increased in recent decades. Hawaiian language "immersion" schools are now open to children whose families want to retain (or introduce) Hawaiian language into the next generation. The local NPR station features a short segment titled "Hawaiian word of the day." Additionally, the Sunday editions of the Honolulu Star-Bulletin feature a brief article called Kauakukalahale, written entirely in Hawaiian by a student.
[edit] Hebrew
Hebrew was revived as a spoken language two millennia after it ceased to be spoken, and is considered a language revival "success story". The language was extinct (aside from as a liturgical language) until the 19th century when it was revived by Eliezer Ben-Yehuda; prior to that, though respected and preserved as the holy language of Judaism, it was considered impractically archaic or too sacred for day-to-day communication. It is now, however, spoken by over 7,000,000 people. Most of these live in Israel, where Hebrew is the official and most commonly-spoken language, but many in Jewish communities outside Israel have undertaken its study.
[edit] Manx
Manx ceased to function as a community language during the first quarter of the 20th century, but was revived by enthusiasts at a time when there were still a number of native speakers alive. Although, at one point, no native speakers of the language were alive and it may have been officially be classified as "dead" in 1975. The revival appears to have gained strength in recent years. There is a regular programme in Manx on Manx Radio. As of 2006 there were forty-six pupils undergoing their education through the medium of Manx at the Bunscoill Ghaelgagh.
[edit] Mirandese
While never really endangered, Mirandese has always had a very small number of speakers in northeastern Portugal, with native speakers numbering about 500 in isolated villages. It may become endangered by modern political and cultural pressures, especially given that it has a history of being perceived as "useless" and "rural". However, the language has gained official status and has started to be learned along with Portuguese in schools. It has recently lost much of its negative public image in light of the fact that it is a language that emerged from Vulgar Latin in the same way as Portuguese. Today, second language speakers may number as many as 15,000.
[edit] West Frisian
Until the 15th century, Frisian was a widely spoken and written language, but from 1500 onwards it became an almost exclusively oral language, mainly used in rural areas. This was in part due to the occupation beginning in 1498 of its stronghold, the Dutch province of Friesland (Fryslân), by Duke Albert of Saxony, who replaced the language of government from Frisian to Dutch. This practice went on under the Habsburg rulers of the Netherlands and continued after the Netherlands attained independence.
Around 1820, the language staged a spontaneous comeback and an entire generation of West Frisian authors and poets appeared.
The number of speakers of the West Frisian language stabilised in the second part of the twentieth century and due to a bigger population and an increasing number of second language speakers it can be said that the number of West Frisian speakers currently is higher than it ever has been.
[edit] References
- ^ Culture and Customs of the Baltic States By Kevin O'Connor; P.126 ISBN 0313331251
- ^ Estonia:Identity and Independence By Jean-Jacques p.84 ISBN 9042008903
- ^ Encyclopedia of Bilingualism and Bilingual Education By Sylvia Prys Jones, Colin Baker ISBN 1853593621
- ^ Russificationat estonica.org
- ^ Lindley Cintra, Luís F. Nova Proposta de Classificação dos Dialectos Galego-PortuguesesPDF (469 KiB) Boletim de Filologia, Lisboa, Centro de Estudos Filológicos, 1971 (in Portuguese).
- ^ Vázquez Cuesta, Pilar «Non son reintegracionista», interview given to La Voz de Galicia on 22/02/2002 (in Galician).
