Social Science and Human Research Bulletin

Language death records the terminal outcome of sustained language shift, but prevention requires more than the production of grammars, dictionaries and archives. This conceptual and thematic analysis examines linguistic and non-linguistic approaches to preventing the discontinuity of threatened languages. It draws on contemporary scholarship, official international frameworks and selected African and Nigerian studies, while retaining foundational work on reversing language shift and ethno linguistic vitality. The analysis identifies linguistic measures such as vitality assessment, documentation, community-controlled orthography, corpus development, terminology expansion, literacy, immersion, teacher preparation and ethically governed language technology. It also identifies non-linguistic conditions, including family transmission, community leadership, favourable attitudes, legal recognition, policy implementation, stable funding, economic domains, public visibility and institutional partnerships. The central analytical result is that linguistic resources preserve knowledge and support learning, but they do not independently restore ordinary communication. Sustainable prevention arises when communities use those resources across homes, schools, workplaces, media, cultural practices and digital environments, with control over priorities and data. The paper proposes an Integrated Language Continuity Framework that joins diagnosis, intergenerational transmission, domain expansion, institutional support and periodic evaluation. It concludes that prevention should prioritise speakers, relationships and recurring social use, while documentation should support, not replace, communicative continuity.

language death, language endangerment, language revitalization, intergenerational transmission, language policy, linguistic diversity

1. Are, O. B. (2015). Bridging the gap between theory and practice in language revitalization efforts in Africa. Ghana Journal of Linguistics, 4(1), 15–31. https://doi.org/10.4314/gjl.v4i1.15
2. Austin, P. K. (2021). Language documentation and language revitalization. In J. Olko & J. Sallabank (Eds.), Revitalizing endangered languages: A practical guide (pp. 199–219). Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108641142.014
3. Austin, P. K., & Sallabank, J. (2018). Language documentation and language revitalization: Some methodological considerations. In L. Hinton, L. Huss, & G. Roche (Eds.), The Routledge handbook of language revitalization (pp. 207–215). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315561271-26
4. Babatunde, S., & Akinnawo, D. (2026). The impact of language choice on language endangerment in educated bilingual homes in Nigeria. International Journal of Multilingualism. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1080/14790718.2026.2616428
5. Dołowy-Rybińska, N., & Hornsby, M. (2021). Attitudes and ideologies in language revitalisation. In J. Olko & J. Sallabank (Eds.), Revitalizing endangered languages: A practical guide (pp. 104–126). Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108641142.008
6. Ehala, M. (2010). Ethnolinguistic vitality and intergroup processes. Multilingua, 29(2), 203–221. https://doi.org/10.1515/mult.2010.009
7. Elliott, R. (2021). Technology in language revitalization. In J. Olko & J. Sallabank (Eds.), Revitalizing endangered languages: A practical guide (pp. 297–316). Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108641142.018
8. Emlen, N. Q. (2021). Getting funding and support. In J. Olko & J. Sallabank (Eds.), Revitalizing endangered languages: A practical guide (pp. 72–82). Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108641142.006
9. Etim, V. E., & Tyoh, J. T. (2026). Strategies for heritage language maintenance: Mitigating language attrition among Anaañ–English bilinguals of Southern Nigeria. Genealogy, 10(2), Article 72. https://doi.org/10.3390/genealogy10020072
10. Fishman, J. A. (1991). Reversing language shift: Theoretical and empirical foundations of assistance to threatened languages. Multilingual Matters. https://doi.org/10.21832/9781800418097
11. Fitzgerald, C. M. (2021). A framework for language revitalization and documentation. Language, 97(1), e1–e11. https://doi.org/10.1353/lan.2021.0006
12. Flores Farfán, J. A., & Olko, J. (2021). Types of communities and speakers in language revitalization. In J. Olko & J. Sallabank (Eds.), Revitalizing endangered languages: A practical guide (pp. 85–103). Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108641142.007
13. Forrest, W. (2018). The intergenerational transmission of Australian Indigenous languages: Why language maintenance programmes should be family-focused. Ethnic and Racial Studies, 41(2), 303–323. https://doi.org/10.1080/01419870.2017.1334938
14. Grenoble, L. A. (2021). Why revitalize? In J. Olko & J. Sallabank (Eds.), Revitalizing endangered languages: A practical guide (pp. 9–32). Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108641142.002
15. Haberland, C., Crowther, C., Qu, J., & Centellas, A. (2026). Bridging digital tools for linguistic documentation and revitalization. In Proceedings of the Sixth Workshop on NLP for Indigenous Languages of the Americas (pp. 22–32). Association for Computational Linguistics. https://doi.org/10.18653/v1/2026.americasnlp-6.3
16. Jany, C. (2018). The role of new technology and social media in reversing language loss. Speech, Language and Hearing, 21(2), 73–76. https://doi.org/10.1080/2050571X.2017.1368971
17. Kornai, A. (2013). Digital language death. PLOS ONE, 8(10), e77056. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0077056
18. Kwok, J. C. Y. (2026). Data colonialism and indigenous languages in AI: A critical review of existing initiatives and their struggles with data sovereignty. AI & Society. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00146-026-03091-w
19. Lawani, M. T. (2025). From policy to practice: Implementation strategies for the national language policy in Nigeria. Journal of the Linguistic Association of Nigeria, 5(1), 1–12. https://doi.org/10.60787/jolan.vol5no1.406
20. Leonard, W. Y. (2021). Local power relationships, community dynamics, and stakeholders. In J. Olko & J. Sallabank (Eds.), Revitalizing endangered languages: A practical guide (pp. 156–164). Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108641142.011
21. Meighan, P. J. (2021). Decolonizing the digital landscape: The role of technology in Indigenous language revitalization. AlterNative: An International Journal of Indigenous Peoples, 17(3), 397–405. https://doi.org/10.1177/11771801211037672
22. Olko, J. (2021). Economic benefits: Marketing and commercializing language revitalization. In J. Olko & J. Sallabank (Eds.), Revitalizing endangered languages: A practical guide (pp. 145–155). Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108641142.010
23. Olko, J., & Sallabank, J. (Eds.). (2021). Revitalizing endangered languages: A practical guide. Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108641142
24. Penfield, S. D. (2021). Planning a language revitalization project. In J. Olko & J. Sallabank (Eds.), Revitalizing endangered languages: A practical guide (pp. 62–71). Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108641142.005
25. Senayon, E. (2021). The language provisions of the national policy on education and the endangerment of Ogu in Southwestern Nigeria. International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism, 24(7), 963–975. https://doi.org/10.1080/13670050.2018.1528205
26. Shah, S., & Brenzinger, M. (2021). Writing our language. In J. Olko & J. Sallabank (Eds.), Revitalizing endangered languages: A practical guide (pp. 220–234). Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108641142.015
27. Surma, A., & Truong, C. L. (2024). Digital tools for language revitalization. In C. Dagostino, M. Mithun, & K. Rice (Eds.), The languages and linguistics of Indigenous North America: A comprehensive guide (Vol. 2, pp. 789–806). De Gruyter Mouton. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110712742-035
28. Underriner, J., Marean, L., Keskitalo, P., Zahir, Z., Bommelyn, P., & Tuttle, R. (2021). Teaching strategies for language revitalization and maintenance. In J. Olko & J. Sallabank (Eds.), Revitalizing endangered languages: A practical guide (pp. 235–272). Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108641142.016
29. UNESCO. (2022). Global action plan of the International Decade of Indigenous Languages (IDIL 2022–2032). https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000383844
30. United Nations General Assembly. (2019). Rights of Indigenous Peoples: Resolution adopted by the General Assembly on 18 December 2019 (A/RES/74/135). https://undocs.org/A/RES/74/135
31. Wiltshire, B., Bird, S., & Hardwick, R. (2024). Understanding how language revitalisation works: A realist synthesis. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, 45(9), 3946–3962. https://doi.org/10.1080/01434632.2022.2134877
32. Wicherkiewicz, T. (2021). Dealing with institutions and policy makers. In J. Olko & J. Sallabank (Eds.), Revitalizing endangered languages: A practical guide (pp. 165–177). Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108641142.012
33. Zhang, S., Frey, B., & Bansal, M. (2022). How can NLP help revitalize endangered languages? A case study and roadmap for the Cherokee language. In Proceedings of the 60th Annual Meeting of the Association for Computational Linguistics (Vol. 1, pp. 1529–1541). Association for Computational Linguistics. https://doi.org/10.18653/v1/2022.acl-long.108