Endangered Languages

While the news seems to highlight the mounting external and internal
pressures that are driving language endangerment, not all languages are
endangered. Many languages have both oral and literary traditions and
are being used for a wide variety of functions in society. Many other
communities, which have not achieved that status for their languages,
are nevertheless taking steps to preserve the vitality of their languages
by finding new ways of using them. Ethnologue records and reports data
about these aspects of language use under the rubric of language
development.

Defining language development

The term language development can be used in both an individual and a
societal sense. It is commonly used among psychologists and educators
with reference to individuals to refer to the phenomenon of child
language acquisition (that is, how infants acquire
language). Ethnologue uses the term in the sense given to it by Charles
Ferguson (1968) who defined language development at the societal level
as primarily dealing with three areas of concern:
 graphization —the development of a system of writing,
 standardization —the development of a norm that overrides regional
and social dialects, and
 modernization —the development of the ability to translate and
carry on discourse about a broad range of topics including those that
are new or foreign to the local community.
These development activities are now generally known as language
planning activities, subsumed specifically within what is called “corpus
planning” (Cooper 1989). More broadly, Ethnologue defines language
development as follows:
Language development is the result of the series of on-going planned
actions that language communities take to ensure that they can
effectively use their languages to achieve their social, cultural, political,
economic, and spiritual goals.

As Ferguson proposed, those planned actions most often consist of the

development of writing systems, the standardization of norms, and the
elaboration of terminology designed to expand the functions of a
language in a society. Language development activities may also go well
beyond corpus planning and cover a broad range of activities including
advocacy on behalf of minority languages and other actions outside of
the realm of linguistics proper. This broader definition of language
development encompasses not only the acquisition of the means of
reading and writing the language, but also the uses of the language in a
variety of media and for as many functions as the speech community
finds useful.

Evaluating language development

Ethnologue provides data not only on the factors which are indicators of
endangerment but also on numerous indicators of development. Notable
among the data that we report are:
 Identification of the writing systems in use both currently and
historically
 Literacy rates in the language as well as in the dominant
languages in the region
 The existence of various kinds of literature including poetry,
stories, translated materials (including health and development
literature and the Bible), and other print media such as newspapers
and magazines
 The use of the language in the broadcast media (radio, television,
recorded materials on compact disc, tape, digital video discs, etc.), or
in films and videos
 The use of the language in so-called “new media” such as on web
pages, in chat rooms, podcasts and MP3 downloads, and for SMS
texting on mobile phones or other electronic devices
 The use of the language for governance functions
 The use of the language by others as their second language
These indicators of the state of development of a language are presented
within the language entries according to their nature and focus;
see Language development under Language Information . In those cases
where most of these development types are amply present, rather than
listing them all separately, we simply categorize a language as “fully
developed”.

Language development and the EGIDS

We report a summary evaluation of the vitality of the languages of the
world by using the Expanded Graded Intergenerational Disruption Scale
or EGIDS (Lewis and Simons 2010), an adaptation and expansion of
Fishman’s (1991) Graded Intergenerational Disruption Scale (GIDS). In
each language entry (under the label Status ) an estimate of the
development versus endangerment of every identified language in each
country where that language is spoken is reported; see Language
Status for the definitions of the levels.
In the middle of the scale is level 6a (Vigorous). These languages are
represented by the green bars in the summary graphs; these are not
developing, but neither are they endangered since they enjoy vigorous
face-to-face use in daily life by all generations. We report this to be the
condition of 2,124 (or 30%) of the 7,111 known living languages in the
world.

The first step up the development side of the EGIDS scale is level 5
(Developing). These languages are represented by the blue bars in the
summary graphs; they are in the initial stages of development
(graphization, standardization, modernization). Literature in a
standardized form is being used by some though this is not yet
widespread or sustainable. We report this to be the condition of 1,519 (or
21%) of the 7,111 known living languages in the world.
All of the remaining levels on the development side of the EGIDS scale (4
and higher) have in common that the language has been developed to the
point that it is used and sustained by institutions beyond the home and
community. These languages are represented by the violet bars in the
summary graphs; as a class they are referred to as “Institutional”
languages. We report this to be the condition of 573 (or 8%) of the 7,111
known living languages in the world. EGIDS levels 4 and higher are
referred to individually as Educational, Wider Communication (EGIDS 3),
Provincial (EGIDS 2), National (EGIDS 1), and International (EGIDS 0).
These successively stronger levels on the scale take into account the
growing number of both uses and users of the language, including its
native community as well as those who have learned it as a second
language.

Language development and language endangerment are not mutually

exclusive. Indeed, many languages that had once risen above EGIDS level
6a (due to language development efforts when they were in vigorous use
by all generations) are now losing users. The endangerment indicators
are given precedence in EGIDS; therefore, such languages are classed at
6b or lower. There are also many communities whose languages are
endangered (at EGIDS levels weaker than 6a) who are engaging in
planned actions designed to improve the vitality of their languages. Even
if such activities result in widely adopted standardization and literature,
the EGIDS level will not rise above level 6a until the community also
achieves sustainable face-to-face use by all generations. The threshold of
stable face-to-face use identified by EGIDS 6a serves as a categorical
boundary line for overall classification as developed versus endangered,
though each specific case may be characterized by a complex
configuration of indicators of both endangerment and development.