Glossary

The words this Atlas uses, and where they come from.

Writing about endangered languages means using terms that look settled and are not. Whether a variety is a language or a dialect, whether someone counts as a speaker, whether a language is extinct or sleeping — each of these is a position, and some are actively contested by the communities the words describe.

So every entry here cites the source it comes from, and says plainly where this Atlas departs from it. Terms marked editorial are mine rather than standard usage.

18 terms

Vitality

How endangered a language is, and what each label on a profile means.

Critically endangered: The youngest speakers are of the great-grandparental generation, and speak it partially and rarely.
Endangeredalso definitively endangered: Children no longer learn it at home; the youngest speakers are of the parental generation.
Extinctalso dormant, sleeping: No speakers remain. Many linguists and communities prefer “dormant” or “sleeping”, for reasons worth knowing.
Intergenerational transmission: Whether children are still learning the language at home — the single most telling measure of its vitality.
RevitalizingEditorialalso awakening, revival: Transmission had broken or ended, and deliberate work is rebuilding it. An editorial category, not a UNESCO grade.
Severely endangered: Spoken by grandparents and older; the parent generation may understand it but does not speak it to children.
Vulnerablealso unsafe: Most children speak it, but its use is restricted — often to the home.

Speakers

Who counts as a speaker, and why the number is never the whole answer.

Documentation: The record of a language — texts, recordings, grammars, dictionaries — and how much of it exists.
First-language speakeralso native speaker, mother tongue speaker, L1 speaker: Someone who acquired the language as a mother tongue in childhood, rather than learning it later.
New speakeralso learner, L2 speaker: Someone who acquired the language outside the home — through classes, immersion, or deliberate adult effort.
Speaker count: An estimate of how many people speak a language. Always contested, always dated, never sufficient on its own.

Naming

What a language is called, and by whom.

Endonymalso autonym, self-name: A name in the language of the people or place it names — Kernewek rather than Cornish.
Exonym: A name used by outsiders, differing from the name used where the thing named is.

Classification

How languages are grouped, and how confident those groupings are.

Dialect: A variety of a language. Where the line falls between a dialect and a language is often contested.
Glottocode: A stable identifier for a language, family or dialect — four letters and four digits, like ainu1240.
Language family: A group of languages descended from a common ancestor.
Language isolate: A language with no demonstrated relatives — a family of one.

Writing

Writing systems, and the choices behind them.

Orthography: A writing system for a language, including which sounds get written and how.