Page 220 - Manj razširjeni evropski jeziki in jezikovne politike

Summary

term implies the meaning ‘outside the centre,’ the term therefore indi-
cates the study of the issues related to peripheral languages, i.e. neglected
or marginalised languages. Crystal prefers using the second term which
sounds more dynamic and useful, the adjective ‘preventive’ pointing at a
series of measures and tools used as prevention against the extinction of
endangered languages. The selection, preparation and implementation of
preventive measures for the improvement of the position of each individ-
ual language belong to the domain of language policy of the country/ies
wherethislanguage isspoken.
On the basis of unesco’s Red Book of Languages in Danger of Disap-
pearing (1993) the first edition of the unesco’s Atlas of the World’s Lan-
guages in Danger was published in 1996. The editor-in-chief of the Atlas,
which provides information on approximately 600 endangered languages,
was the Australian linguist of Hungarian-Austrian origin Stephen Wurms
(1922–2001). The second edition, printed in 2007, includes data on 800 en-
dangered languages. The third edition, the editor-in-chief of which was
the Australian linguist Christopher Moseley (1950), published in 2010, was
written in three language versions, i.e. English, French and Spanish. More-
over, an electronic version is available, which is regularly completed and
updated. This latest edition of the Atlas is considered the most systematic
and accomplished work for the study of endangered languages across the
entireworld:itincludesabout2500autochtonouslanguages,butthisnum-
ber is constantly increasing. The name of every described idiom is followed
by the data regarding the level of endangerment or vitality and its speaking
area, whilst in the electronic version additional data can be found: those
revealing the number of speakers, characteristics of the language policy
connected with a determined language, financial means dedicated to the
revitalisation of the idiom in question, current projects undertaken in or-
der to develop it. 30 experts from all over the world participated in the
elaboration of this masterpiece, the authors of the presentation of the Eu-
ropean and Caucasian languages being Tapani Salminen from the Depart-
ment of the Finno-Ugric studies at the University of Helsinki and Tjeerd
de Graaf from the Mercator European Research Centre on Multilingualism
and Language Learning hosted by the Fryske Akademy in the Netherlands.
In fact, European endangered languages represent merely 3 of the con-
tents of the Atlas. unesco’s international commission created a six-level
vitality and endangerment framework consisting of 9 criteria, meaning
that they introduced 6 descriptive qualifiers by means of which linguists
can classify each individual idiom included in the Atlas. These levels are:

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