list of revived languages

This article lists languages that survived oblivion. These languages were once prominent, then among the endangered languages, but regained status through language revival. The most frequent reason of oblivion was oppression of the local speech by dominating nation that enforced assimilation, seconded by arguments of "unimportance" for the purposes of communication or business.

Basque language

Belarusian language. In fact, the whole nation of Belarusians was "invisible" 150 years ago, people being known as litvins, by the name of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, to which the Belarusian land belonged. The nation was under heavy polonization, followed by russification. The language recovered after the Russian Revolution, followed by another period of neglect. A second chance of the revival appeared after the collapse of the Soviet Union, followed by significant increase of interest in Belarusian culture, language, and historical heritage. The government of Lukashenko associates these interests with opposition which is against his policy towards the union with Russia. As a result, as of 2005, Minsk, the capital of Belarus does not have a single school with education carried out in Belarusian language.

Cornish language

Czech language. Since 18th century, after the incorporation of Czech lands into the Habsburg Empire the language was suppressed under the policy of Germanization and recovered in 20th century after the nation regained its independence.

Frisian language

Hebrew language was reborn, after two millenia of oblivion, as a spoken language during the late 19th and early 20th century as Modern Hebrew. The revival was initiated by the ardent efforts of Eliezer Ben-Yehuda.

Irish language sees its revival from late 19th centrury, and especially since the year of the independence of Ireland, 1922. However, as late as the 1950s most Irish saw Gaelic as "useless" and associated with rural poverty. Eventually, by the end of the 20th century the language made a substantial comeback.

Manx language

Provenal language

Mirandese language Not ever endangered, but always with very low number of speakers in Northestern Portugal, first language speakers are about 500 in isolated villages. It could get endangered by pressure of modern times and it was seen has "useless" and "rural". But the language gained official status and started to be learned aside with Portuguese in schools, lost its bad connotations, due that it is a language that emerged from latin, just like Portuguese. Second language speakers can reach up to 15000.

List Of Revived Languages

See also