Editing Endangered language (section)

==Defining and measuring endangerment==
[[File:Lang_Status_List.svg|thumb|right|How UNESCO's Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger classifies languages]]
While there is no definite threshold for identifying a language as endangered, [[UNESCO]]'s 2003 document entitled ''Language vitality and endangerment''<ref name="UNESCO 6000" /> outlines nine factors for determining language vitality:
# Intergenerational language transmission
# Absolute number of speakers
# Proportion of speakers existing within the total (global) population
# Language use within existing contexts and domains
# Response to language use in new domains and media
# Availability of materials for language education and literacy
# Government and institutional language policies
# Community attitudes toward their language
# Amount and quality of documentation
Many languages, for example some in [[Indonesia]], have tens of thousands of speakers but are endangered because children are no longer learning them, and speakers are shifting to using the [[national language]] (e.g. [[Indonesian language|Indonesian]]) in place of local languages. In contrast, a language with only 500 speakers might be considered very much alive if it is the primary language of a community, and is the first (or only) spoken language of all children in that community.{{citation needed|date=July 2012}}

Asserting that "Language diversity is essential to the human heritage", UNESCO's Ad Hoc Expert Group on Endangered Languages offers this definition of an endangered language: "... when its speakers cease to use it, use it in an increasingly reduced number of communicative domains, and cease to pass it on from one generation to the next. That is, there are no new speakers, adults or children."<ref name="UNESCO 6000">{{cite web|url=http://www.unesco.org/culture/ich/doc/src/00120-EN.pdf|title=Language Vitality and Endangerment|year=2003|access-date=12 August 2016|author=UNESCO Ad Hoc Expert Group on Endangered Languages}}</ref>

{{anchor|UNESCO definitions}}<!-- incoming links to here -->UNESCO operates with four levels of language endangerment between "safe" (not endangered) and "extinct" (no living speakers), based on intergenerational transfer: "vulnerable" (not spoken by children outside the home), "definitely endangered" (children not speaking), "severely endangered" (only spoken by the oldest generations), and "critically endangered" (spoken by few members of the oldest generation, often [[Speaker types|semi-speaker]]s).<ref name="Moseley">{{cite book
 | editor-last=Moseley
 | editor-first=Christopher
 | year=2010
 | title=Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger
 | edition=3rd
 | location=Paris
 | publisher=UNESCO Publishing
 | url=http://www.unesco.org/new/en/culture/themes/endangered-languages/atlas-of-languages-in-danger/
 | series=Memory of Peoples
 | isbn=978-92-3-104096-2
 | access-date=2018-05-15
}}</ref>
UNESCO's ''[[Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger]]'' categorises 2,473 languages by level of endangerment.<ref>{{cite web|title=UNESCO Interactive Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger |url=http://www.unesco.org/culture/en/endangeredlanguages/atlas/|year=2010|access-date=15 May 2018|publisher=UNESCO}}</ref>

Using an alternative scheme of classification, linguist [[Michael E. Krauss]] defines languages as "safe" if it is considered that children will probably be speaking them in 100 years; "endangered" if children will probably not be speaking them in 100 years (approximately 60–80% of languages fall into this category) and "moribund" if children are not speaking them now.<ref name=K2007>{{Cite book|last =Krauss| first =Michael E.| author-link =Michael E. Krauss| editor-last =Miyaoka| editor-first=Osahito | editor2-last= Sakiyama| editor2-first=Osamu | editor3-first=Michael E.|editor3-last=Krauss|year =2007| contribution = Keynote – Mass Language Extinction and Documentation: The Race Against Time| title =The Vanishing Languages of the Pacific Rim| edition =illustrated| place =Oxford| publisher =Oxford University Press|pages=3–24| id =9780199266623| isbn =978-0199266623}}</ref>

Many scholars have devised techniques for determining whether languages are endangered. One of the earliest is GIDS (Graded Intergenerational Disruption Scale) proposed by [[Joshua Fishman]] in 1991.<ref>Fishman, Joshua. 1991. ''Reversing Language Shift''. Clevendon: Multilingual Matters.</ref> In 2011 an entire issue of ''[[Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development]]'' was devoted to the study of ethnolinguistic vitality, Vol. 32.2, 2011, with several authors presenting their own tools for measuring language vitality. A number of other published works on measuring language vitality have been published, prepared by authors with varying situations and applications in mind.<ref>Dwyer, Arienne M. 2011. [http://kuscholarworks.ku.edu/dspace/bitstream/1808/7109/1/Dwyer2011_AssessRevitalize.pdf Tools and techniques for endangered-language assessment and revitalization]</ref><ref>Ehala, Martin. 2009. An Evaluation Matrix for Ethnolinguistic Vitality. In Susanna Pertot, Tom Priestly & Colin Williams (eds.), ''Rights, promotion and integration issues for minority languages in Europe'', 123–137. Houndmills: PalgraveMacmillan.</ref><ref>M. Lynne Landweer. 2011. Methods of Language Endangerment Research: A Perspective from Melanesia. ''International Journal of the Sociology of Language'' 212: 153–178.</ref><ref>Lewis, M. Paul & Gary F. Simons. 2010. Assessing Endangerment: Expanding Fishman's GIDS. ''Revue Roumaine de linguistique'' 55(2). 103–120. [http://www-01.sil.org/~simonsg/preprint/EGIDS.pdf Online version] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151227211312/http://www-01.sil.org/~simonsg/preprint/EGIDS.pdf |date=2015-12-27 }}</ref><ref>Lee, Nala Huiying, and John Van Way. 2016. [https://www.academia.edu/4027666/Assessing_levels_of_endangerment_in_the_Catalogue_of_Endangered_Languages_ELCat_using_the_Language_Endangerment_Index_LEI_ Assessing levels of endangerment in the Catalogue of Endangered Languages (ELCat) using the Language Endangerment Index (LEI).] Language in Society 45(02):271-292.</ref><ref>ELDIA EuLaViBar Toolkit, https://phaidra.univie.ac.at/o:301101</ref>