Revitalize or not? Minority Communities and Endangered Languages in a Globalizing World. (original) (raw)

According to the statistics regarding the endangerment of languages, a very high percent of the languages of the world are in danger of extinction. Some estimations state that approximately 90% of the 6,000-7,000 languages spoken today will be extinct in 100 years if the processes of language change and language loss continue at the present pace. According to others, this rate is around 50%. This raises the question of language revitalization and of reversing language shift. My paper aims to present the newest trends in language revitalization theory and practices with a special regard to globalization and linguistic human rights from the sociolinguistic and ecolinguistic perspective. The paper also aims to give an overview of the Expanded Graded Intergenerational Disruption Scale which provides a more detailed description of the level of endangerment of the particular languages.