structural:reformatting, linguistic:voice_change, linguistic:paraphrasing
Endangered languages: language documentation and revitalization

Endangered languages are languages that are not being passed down to children as their mother tongue or that have declining numbers of speakers for a variety of reasons. Therefore, after a couple generations these languages may no longer be spoken. Anthropologists have been involved with endangered language communities through their involvement in language documentation and revitalization projects.

In a language documentation project, researchers work to develop records of the language - these records could be field notes and audio or video recordings. To follow best practices of documentation, these records should be clearly annotated and kept safe within an archive of some kind. Franz Boas was one of the first anthropologists involved in language documentation within North America and he supported the development of three key materials: 1) grammars, 2) texts, and 3) dictionaries. This is now known as the Boasian Trilogy.

Language revitalization is the practice of bringing a language back into common use. The revitalization efforts can take the form of teaching the language to new speakers or encouraging the continued use within the community. One example of a language revitalization project is the Lenape language course taught at Swathmore College, Pennsylvania. The course aims to educate indigenous and non-indigenous students about the Lenape language and culture.

Language reclamation, as a subset of revitalization, implies that a language has been taken away from a community and addresses their concern in taking back the agency to revitalize their language on their own terms. Language reclamation addresses the power dynamics associated with language loss. Encouraging those who already know the language to use it, increasing the domains of usage, and increasing the overall prestige of the language are all components of reclamation. One example of this is the Miami language being brought back from 'extinct' status through extensive archives.

While the field of linguistics has also been focused on the study of the linguistic structures of endangered languages, anthropologists also contribute to this field through their emphasize on ethnographic understandings of the socio-historical context of language endangerment, but also of language revitalization and reclamation projects.