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Language Revitalization Movements: Difficulties and Success

Ryan Hirano

Throughout the 21st century, Language Revitalization moments have become more and more

popular. Minority groups across the globe have realized the importance of maintaining and

reviving their mother tongue and thus are starting to begin Language Revitalization movements

of their own. Over time however, many of these movements have failed to due various issue such

as lack of funding or lack of governmental support. Even if a movement is able to overcome

these difficulties and succeed, what this “success” looks like has been ill-defined in previous

language revitalization literature. This paper examines what this “success” for a language

revitalization movement would look like and what are the main challenges language

revitalization movements face.

Introduction: Fishman’s Model for Language Revitalization

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There are many factors involved in whether a particular language revitalization

movement succeeds or not. A common model or “roadmap” for language revitalization

movements is Fishman’s eight step model. In the model, Fishman’s describes the general

processes successful language revitalization movements have historically gone through. He also

proposes that such processes are essential to all language revitalization movements and that all

language revitalization movements will have to eventually go through all eight processes in order

to be considered successful and non-endangered. From step one all the way to step eight, it goes

as follows:

1. Acquisition of oral fluency in the target language for adults (to create the teachers for

the next generation)

2. Create a place where language learners can meet to use the language

3. Encourage the language to be used among all people in the community (children,

adults)

4. Encourage learners to become literate in the target language (steps 1-3 primarily

focuses on oral fluency, not written fluency)

5. Encourage the target language to be used in schools.

6. Encourage the target language to be used in the workplace.

7. Encourage the target language to be used by the local government and in mass media.

8. Encourage the target language to be used in universities and national governments.

Importantly, Fishman notes that not all eight steps have to be done in chronological order

in order for language revitalization movements to be successful and that every language

revitalization movements may go through the steps in different orders due to the fact that not all
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language revitalization movements encounter the same local situations or issues. He does

however, warn of the danger of going through all of the steps at the same time, stating that doing

so would spread the precious resources (time, money, manpower, etc.) of the language

revitalization movements too thin and would result in the overall failure of the movement.

Hawaiian Language Revitalization Movement

In comparison to Fishman’s proposed model of language revitalization movement’s

success, I will analyze the generally recognized as successful language revitalization movements

of Hawaiian to see where they differ from Fishman’s model. The Hawaiian Revitalization

movement began in the 1970’s and 80’s through the Hawaiian Renaissance. Noticing the ever

decreasing amount of native Hawaiian practitioners and the ever increasing dominance of

mainstream American culture, Hawaiian youths started to become more interested in their

traditional culture. While this “Renaissance” had initially began as a movement designed to

revive traditional Hawaiian culture and not the language per say, many youths started to realize

the importance relationship language has with culture and therefore also started to become more

interested in reviving their traditional language. Thus, in the 1980’s the first Punana Leo or

“language nests” were constructed.

Language Nests
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Taking inspiration from the Maori Revitalization movement occurring in New Zealand

which began just a couple of years earlier, Hawaiian language activists saw the importance of

starting young when trying to revive an endangered language. Language nests were essentially

language immersion-style preschools where all preschool activities were conducted in Hawaiian.

Alongside the traditional language, traditional Hawaiian values and ways of doing things were

also encouraged. As Punana Leo became more and more popular, the organization started

opening more preschools around the state. Eventually, as these preschoolers who were raised

solely in Hawaiian grew up and became ready to go on to elementary school, many parents and

Hawaiian activists saw the need of continuing their children's education in a uniquely Hawaiian

environment. This lead to the creation of elementary schools solely conducted in Hawaiian, with

English as a Foreign language class later introduced in fifth grade. Continuing this pattern, as

these students grew up and advanced in grade levels, Hawaiian immersion middle schools and

high schools were also eventually established to meet the demands of these new Hawaiian

students.

Analysis of the Hawaiian Revitalization movement through Fishman’s model

Using Fishman’s eight step model as a measuring tool to gauge the current progress of

the Hawaiian Revitalization movement, the movement would be somewhere around step five. As

at the time of the first Hawaiian immersion preschools, there was still a sizable amount of elderly

native speakers to help train new teachers and create Hawaiian-speaking environments for

children and adult learners alike, the Hawaiian revitalization movement was able to advance

through steps 1-3 at a pretty brisk pace. Traditionally, before the overthrow of the Hawaiian

monarchy and the establishment of an American-aligned republican government, Hawaiian had

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a rich literary tradition where many books and newspapers were published in Hawaiian.

However, once the new government took power, English quickly became the favored language

of government and society, thus leading many Hawaiians literature in their own language. In the

early days of the Hawaiian Revitalization movement, Hawaiian activists had the problem of

updating this old literature to be usable in a modern context. They also had the problem (and

even still do to a lesser extent) of not having any suitable teaching material for young learners.

Over time, these problems have decreased. However, to reiterate a point made earlier in this

paper, the Hawaiian revitalization movement has still not achieved steps six, seven, or eight. In

regards to step six, the main language of business in Hawaii is still English with Hawaiian being

given little patronage by the major businesses. With step seven however, it is a little harder to

judge. It is true that Hawaiian is recognized by the State of Hawaii as an co-official language of

the government and Hawaiian also has an ever increasing presence in social media such as on

Twitter and Facebook. That being said however, although the State of Hawaii on paper allows

the use of Hawaiian in all official functions, in actuality many Hawaiians have reported difficulty

in actually using Hawaiian to fulfill normal government related activities such as getting a

drivers license or getting one’s birth certificate in Hawaiian. Furthermore, the laws of Hawaii are

still mainly passed in English with no equivalent translation into Hawaiian. In short, the local

government has done little in promoting the use of Hawaiian.

Introduction: Conclusion
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Although I have only given a brief overview of Language Revitalization movements in

general and some general information on what the Hawaiian Language Revitalization movement

is, further on within this paper I shall continue to use the Hawaiian Language Revitalization

movement as a reference to further explore concepts and ideas related to Language

Revitalization movements. More specifically, I shall examine two different topics. The first topic

I shall examine in depth is what does success look like? While we have previously examined the

“road to success” through Fishman’s model. we have still hitherto not defined what ultimate

success for a language revitalization movement would look like. The second topic I shall

examine are what problems or difficulties language revitalization movements tend to face. In

doing so, perhaps knowing about the difficulties and arduous of leading a successful language

revitalization movement may help language revitalization activists better prepare for the

problems they too might face in trying to revive their own language. In essence, the main points I

will be stressing throughout this paper are:

1. What are the some difficulties Language Revitalization movements face?

2. For Language Revitalization movements in general, what does “success” look like?

Method

Data Collection and Data Analysis

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2 semi-structured interviews were conducted with each interview lasting around 60

minutes. Each interviewees were selected based on their knowledge about a specific language

revitalization movement, or about language revitalization/ documenting movements in general.

Interviews were audio-recorded with the interviewee’s permission and conducted in English. The

transcribed interviews were coded and categorized by the researcher, and themes emerged from

the data. The excerpts presented in the following findings section were selected because they

best exemplified each of the central themes.

Participants

The first subjects of this study was a Hawaiian Professor at UH Manoa who had

conducted much research in the Hawaiian Revitalization movement. The second subject of this

study was a graduate student of linguistics who had ample experience in Language Revitalization

and Language Documentation. Much of the information displayed below was gleaned from

conversations with said individuals.

Difficulties

Using the Hawaiian Revitalization movement as a model for comparison, what are some

difficulties that language revitalization movements face? Although a language revitalization

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movements usually start with well-intentioned individuals who simply want their

mother/ancestral language to succeed and become more healthy and commonly spoken again,

along the way many movements face difficulties which lead to their failure. Some examples of

these difficulties are lack of funding, lack of qualified teachers, lack of governmental support,

and lack of popular support.

Languages which are endangered enough to have dedicated language revitalization

movements are usually those who are minority languages in their respective countries. Due to the

very fact that they’re a minority and thus “different” from the language of the majority which is

spoken in their country, many minority languages experience linguistically persecution or

ignorance, with many of them either being discouraged from being taught to the next generation

in schools and public events or being denied recognization as an official language of the local

government. Although morally speaking this is a repulsive stance to take, akin to linguistically

genocide, oftentimes those nations have a vested interest to ensure that minority languages and

hence local language revitalization movements do not succeed. In essence, these national

governments fear that if minority languages succeed and become more popular, then speakers of

these languages would start to see themselves differently from speakers of the majority language,

thus possibly leading to rebellion and the breakaway of a new independent country. Thus due to

this fear of potential rebellion many nations are reluctant to lend support towards language

revitalization movements, oftentimes instead trying to do the opposite by either downplaying the

minority languages status as a separate language by calling it a “dialect” of the majority language

or by outright denying the existence of the minority language.

Through this official policy of encouraging the growth and prestige of the majority

language and consequently discouraging the growth and prestige of the minority language, many
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speakers of the minority language tend to develop a sense of apathy or disgust towards their own

mother tongue. Many parents of these minority languages don’t see their mother tongue as being

“useful” or advantageous for their children to learn, so oftentimes parents decide to only talk to

their children in the dominant language. This sort of situation compounded over multiple

generations eventually leads to language endangerment and in extreme cases language

extinction. On the other hand, although a parent may speak the minority mother tongue to their

children, sometimes it is the children themselves who reject their own mother tongue and instead

gravitate towards the majority language. This is usually due to same reasons mentioned above

where some youths of minority languages view their own mother tongue as improper or

something not worthy of keeping and instead view the language of the majority as being more

proper or “cooler” to speak.

One often overlooked problem language revitalization movements encounter is the lack

of qualified teachers. Usually most language revitalization movements start when the language is

heavily endangered or near extinction. In these cases most native speakers of the language being

revived are elderly. This comes with two problems. The first is that as oftentimes, especially for

energetic, excitable elementary schoolers, elderly people don’t make the best teachers. They are

either slow to adapt to new teaching methods or are unable to keep up with the high demands

teaching children and teenagers require. The second is if a core group of younger adult teachers

are not created in time, then eventually the elderly native speaking teachers will pass away,

leaving no one capable enough to teach the next generation. Another problem linked with the

difficulty of finding enough qualified teachers is the fact that most potential teachers (at least

early on in the language revitalization movement) don’t possess all the skills necessary to

become excellent teachers. For an immersion school to succeed, it needs teachers who are both
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knowledgable in the target language and a subject matter to teach in (math, science, social

studies, etc). Finding a qualified teacher who not only knows the target minority language but

who is also highly knowledgeable in a teaching subject is incredibly difficult. Usually this sort of

problem isn’t quite solved until quite late into the movement when the available pool of qualified

teachers start to increase.

Success for a movement

While there has been much research done towards determining the “steps for success”

that all language revitalization movements must face in order to be successful, there has not been

much research on what this success would look like in concrete terms. Obviously, while all

language revitalization are looking for success through the revival of their endangered language,

what this “revival” would actually mean is often hard to define. Even among the same language

revitalization movement itself, different individuals within the movement have different opinions

on what they want the end goal of the movement to be. Once again taking the Hawaiian

Revitalization movement as an example, what are some possible end goals the movement could

pursue? They could:

a. Revive the Hawaiian Language until it becomes the sole majority language of Hawaii

b. Revive the Hawaiian Language until it reaches parity with English, thus creating a

bilingual English/Hawaiian state.

b. Revive the Hawaiian Language until it has stabilized and no longer endangered, thus

keeping it as a healthy minority language of Hawaii.

c. etc, etc.
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As can be seen, the possible end goal of the Hawaiian Revitalization movement and

language revitalization movements in general are near limitless, with some individuals favoring

one end goal or definition of success over another. In the future, this inability to choose (or the

fact that there are so many choices) has the possibility of creating disunity and thus fracturing

language revitalization movements. It can be argued however, that if a language revitalization

moment were to become large enough, they would then have enough members to weather such

as split. That being said, a split in a smaller movement would definitely spell the death of the

movement.

Conclusion

As previously argued by Fishman, in order to succeed and successfully revive their target

language, language revitalization movements must all go through the same eight stages of

development. However, along the way many language revitalization movements encounter

obstacles such as lack of funding, participants, governmental recognition, or qualified teachers

that may lead to the breakup of a movement and thus the death of the language. Even if all eight

steps are attained and the language movement revitalization attains “success,” what this success

looks like is different depending on the individuals within the movement itself, thus many

different language revitalization movements may be many different end goals for what they want

their target language to become. This sort of confusion of what the final goal is for a particular

language revitalization movement has the chance to split the movement into various factions, all

vying for different end goals.

While Language revitalization movements encounter great difficulties on the road to

success, all is not without hope. Especially in modern times, due to the rise of the internet and
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thus learning languages through the use of technology, language learning and thus language

revitalization movements have entered a state of decentralization where individuals from far-

flung places may learn and thus revive their language without even necessarily being in the same

place or at the same time. (Galla 2009) Thus it can be said that opportunities to advance the

moment are becoming ever so common. That being said however, technology can only serve as a

useful aid to language revitalization movements, it is not the sole solution.

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Harvard Educational Review, 82(3), 381-402.

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