The EuLaViBar language vitality barometer is a tool that can be used to determine the extent to which a language is threatened with extinction. Academics from eight universities in six European countries developed the barometer during a three-and-a-half year project sponsored by the European Union. It is now available to anybody interested online at http://www.eldia-project.org/index.php/eulavibar. "We originally developed the barometer for the purpose of analyzing Finno-Ugric minority languages, some of which are very much in danger of dying out," explained Professor Anneli Sarhimaa of Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (JGU), who headed up the study. "However, the language vitality barometer can generally be applied to all languages threatened with extinction."
The barometer is designed to help policymakers and stakeholders identify languages that are at particular risk. The information provided by the barometer is based on empirical data extracted from surveys. Once particularly critical linguistic domains have been identified, it should then be possible to put in place targeted measures and use available resources efficiently.
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References:
EurekAlert. 2014. “Language Vitality Barometer Toolkit for Detecting Endangered Languages Available Online”. EurekAlert. Posted: February 11, 2014. Available online: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2014-02/jgum-lvb021114.php
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