The CIPL/CIPSH Chair Ethnolinguistic Vitality and Diversity in the World, with the support of CIPL and the Leiden University Centre for Linguistics (LUCL), organized an International Symposium on June 2nd 2023 with the theme: ‘Language maintenance and revitalization across the world’. Two features of the symposium were that it was hybrid allowing more than 100 participants. Additionally, it was multi-modal with all presentations and discussions represented in sound, sign and in writing. Moreover, probably for the first time, the maintenance and vitality of signed and spoken languages were discussed in the same forum.
Language shift and break in (intergenerational) transmission of languages continues to threaten the vitality of languages and cultures. In the face of this global shrinking of linguistic diversity, individuals and communities engage in activities and practices to promote the continued use of signed and spoken languages in various domains across the world. The symposium provided a forum for researchers to reflect on practices of maintenance and/or revitalization and reclamation of signed and spoken languages in different regions of the world including Europe, Australia, South America, East Africa, and Siberia.
The symposium opened with the reflections of Anne Pauwels (SOAS, University of London and University of Melbourne) on the theme ‘Maintaining linguistic diversity in the 21st century: Challenges and opportunities’. She noted that there is no doubt that linguistic diversity, as measured in terms of the number of languages used around the world, is rapidly diminishing. Yet, the presence of multiple languages spoken or heard in many (mainly urban) regions is in fact growing. This is especially the case in those regions and countries ‘governed’ by a monolingual linguistic ideology. While ‘indigenous’ languages only make up a small part of this linguistic diversity, they nevertheless contribute to this multilingual palette in urban areas. Thus, in the 21st century we are faced with a situation of both decreasing and increasing linguistic diversity. This poses challenges for both researchers and policy makers: how to investigate and manage these ‘conflicting’ trends when there is a desire to maintain linguistic diversity. Putting the spotlight on the research side, she reviewed how linguistic diversity and language maintenance/revitalisation have been studied in the past. She advocates that given the complexity of linguistic diversity and the urgency surrounding the survival of many languages, new ideas, approaches and methods that build upon the insights of formerly separated fields of study in the pursuit of maintaining or revitalising languages should be explored. For example, linguistic landscape studies that focus on public signage in places can be augmented by soundscape studies in public places such as markets, public transport. She reported on such ongoing research comparing the soundscape in public transport in Melbourne, Antwerp and Berlin with reflections on the ethical and other challenges of implementing such research.
Miguel Oliveira Jr, (Universidade Federal de Alagoas, Brazil) provided an overview of the ongoing efforts to document Yaathe, the language of the Fulni-ô people in Brazil. Yaathe is currently the only indigenous language still spoken in the vast Nordeste region and is classified as “severely endangered” by UNESCO. This language seems to be an isolate and holds great significance due to its unique cultural and linguistic characteristics. One of the challenges faced by linguists and community members involved in documenting Yaathe is that while the community is very keen for the digital documentation of the language for future generations, they do not wish for their language to be preserved in open access repositories. Some community members put linguacultural information on social media such as YouTube. This context generated a lot of discussion about the role of researchers and about ethical ways of contributing to the documentation of the language.
Two presentations focused on language maintenance, and revitalization efforts in the face of ongoing language shift in Siberia. Natalia Aralova (Kiel University & Münster University) gave an overview of language maintenance efforts and the linguistic vitality and diversity situation in Siberia. Siberia is a region of high linguistic diversity with 10 language families and about 49 languages. However, the vitality of these languages are highly threatened. Drawing on a vitality scale for languages of Russia, it is shown that the intergenerational transmission of some languages such as Ket has been interrupted. In other cases such as Even, Evenki or Chukchi, the intergenerational transmission of the languages is being interrupted. Yet other languages in the area are silent, that is, there is no communication taking place in those languages and they have only few last speakers left. While language shift in Siberia is an ongoing process, the topic of revitalization is becoming more popular and the importance of language diversity is recognized. Attempts are being made by language activists to create learning contexts in some cases for the languages e.g. Nanai. Aralova asks rhetorically, is it too late? Her reflection is that it is probably impossible to reverse this process for all languages, but it is feasible to slow it down and disseminate knowledge about strategies for language maintenance. There is a significant role for the recently (2021) established Center of Preservation, Revitalization and Documentation of languages of Russia. The Center has supported the involvement and training of language activists, language documentation with a focus on revitalization and the introduction of the Master-Apprentice practice in several communities.
Andrey Shluinsky reported on the process of creating a standardised orthography for one of the languages of Siberia, Forest Enets, classified as silent. It has no more than three dozens of full-fledged speakers, and the language has not been used on everyday basis for about twenty years. Still, revitalization initiatives have existed for this language during a decade, and some of this effort is traditionally directed at making community-oriented linguistic resources, such as a primer, a phrasebook, a picture dictionary or a text collection. For these products one needs some orthographical conventions. It was not an easy task as many writiers who had developed their own writing habits did not wish to change. However a compromise solution was found primarily because of some methodological principles which are instructive for other orthography development projects. First, tolerance of different forms of wiriting where there was no correct or incorrect form. Second, phonological variants were explicitly marked as such. This makes it possible to avoid labeling any phonological variant as ‘not correct’ and thus decreasing motivation to use the language.
Children and novices can be agents in the process of language and cultural transmission, thereby ensuring the maintenance of linguistic and cultural practices. They can use games and songs for this. In her contribution, Sara Petrollino (Leiden University) describes a ‘herding game’ played mainly by young Hamar children who are not enrolled in formal schooling. The Hamar are an agro-pastoralist group in southwest Ethiopia. During the game, the children practice, for example, the Hamar system of address for cattle and humans and learn animal-directives and interjections. The Hamar herding game reveals the dynamics by which Hamar children become competent users of linguacultural features that are essential in a pastoral society.
Shifting the focus from spoken languages to sign languages, Victoria Nyst (Leiden University) presented a history of deaf education and deaf activism across the world. She noted that in many societies, the vitality of sign languages and their transmission over time is compromised by ideologies and attitudes regarding the relative values of signing and speaking and regarding variations in hearing status. Oralism (i.e. stigmatization of signing) and audism (stigmatization of being deaf) interact with more general developments in society, politics, science, and technology, with fluctuating impacts on sign language vitality both at very local and at very international levels. She will introduce some efforts of deaf signers and signing communities to maintain and vitalize their sign language. She discussed ways in which signing communities with indigenous sign languages respond to the introduction of sign languages from Western countries via deaf education in many Southern countries. This raises the question of what sign language to use in deaf education similar to the question of language in education in many Southern countries. Moreover, it raises the question of what the best learning context is for language revitalization and maintenance.
Tatiana Koumba (Leiden University) gave an account of the struggles in Gabon for the introduction and use of Gabonese Sign Language rather than Langue de Signe Française (LSF) in deaf schools. The deaf community and their supporters organized protests and sit-ins at the Ministry of Education. They also called for the return of local deaf teachers to the schools. There is on-going research to create learning materials for use in the schools.
Shane Gilchrist (UvAmsterdam), a Deaf Sign linguistics researcher, prefaced his reflections on Sign language revitalization in Colombia with a personal history of how he came to be a Signer in Ireland as he “failed in Oralism”. In Columbia, there were three signed languages in the last century, however there was some form of standardization taking place since 1984 with the first LSC dictionary published in 1993, which can be seen as a form of revitalization. With LSC’s recognition by the Colombian State in 1996, the deaf federation and other groups played a valuable role in the vitality and revitalization of LSC as the language of Colombia’s deaf community and that all deaf & hard of hearing children are taught LSC by deaf teachers and deaf instructors (modelos lingüísticos) which is quite remarkable by European standards as the deaf community has been involved in education policy-making since the 1980s. The Columbian case illustrates issues of standardization and the use of sign languages in deaf education at a national level.
The symposium was stimulating and provoked many thoughts and questions among participants. Some of the issues raised during the General Discussion for further exploration include the ethics of working with communities – how can linguists collaborate more ethically with language communities? What are the arenas of language maintenance and language socialization for the vitality of languages? Does formal schooling compromise everyday linguistic practices? How can language standardization and orthography development practices be enhanced to accommodate variation? A related question is how through language teaching, for instance in the Netherlands, language learners can be made aware of variation and diversity. An important question raised is how to gather data about and from communities and how to get that information to inform policy making. It was suggested that linguists in their various countries work closely with Statistical and Census Officers to get language questions onto Census surveys for example. Importantly they should think about the formulation of such questions. The question should not be about the mother tongue, a complex notion, but should at least ask for the languages people use in their daily life. Given the multi-modal nature of the symposium with sign language interpretation, the participants called for more sign language empowerment, and in particular for the training of more sign language interpreters. Given the diverse practices of language maintenance and revitalization discussed , a promising line of research could be a comparative study of the strategies across communities.
