Vulnerable and Endangered Languages in Europe (VELE2024)

Over the past decades, it has become obvious that many languages spoken around the world are threatened with extinction. As linguistic diversity is essential to human existence, researchers started focusing on language documentation, maintenance and revitalization, raising awareness of the need to safeguard the linguistic heritage, and creating databases of endangered languages. When it comes to Serbia, these databases differ widely in terms of assessing language endangerment, and often give insufficient or inaccurate data on the varieties spoken here. Our Project’s ambition is to create a precise tool for assessing the degree of language endangerment and vulnerability, and to apply it to a statistically significant sample of speakers in Serbia. The tool will be applied to the following linguistic varieties, carefully chosen based on the international assessment, as well as our own field research: Aromanian, Banat Bulgarian, Vojvodina Rusyn (Ruthenian), Judezmo (Ladino), Romani (Vlax and Balkan varieties), Megleno-Romanian, Vlach and Bayash Romanian. The result will be an accurate assessment of the vulnerability of the linguistic varieties in Serbia, which could be used as a solid reference in the future for any sociolinguistic research. The absolute novelty of the research proposal is that, in parallel with the application of the carefully conceived sociolinguistic questionnaire, it will also document and archive speech samples of vulnerable linguistic varieties, over three generations of speakers. Based on the collected data, a database, a graded scale of vitality and an interactive map will be created that would provide insight into the vulnerability of specific varieties in the studied communities. Furthermore, it will help build support for language communities, NGOs and the government in their efforts to maintain and revitalize these languages, and may serve as a reliable tool for vulnerability assessment in language communities worldwide.