Assessing linguistic vulnerability and endangerment in Serbia a critical survey of methodologies and outcomes

Abstract

The paper offers a critical survey of vulnerable and endangered languages and linguistic varieties in Serbia presented in three international inventories: UNESCO’s Atlas of the World’s Languages in Danger, Ethnologue and The Catalogue of Endangered Languages. As the inventories differ widely in terms of assessing the exact level of language endangerment and vulnerability, and lack to provide empirical support for their assessment, the paper provides thorough information from official local sources, relevant studies and the authors’ own field research, when available, on the language categorized as endangered (Aromanian, Banat Bulgarian, Judezmo, Vojvodina Rusyn, Romani), but also presents additional linguistic varieties which have not been registered yet by any of the mentioned inventories (Megleno-Romanian, Bayash Romanian and Vlach Romanian).

Keywords

• sociolinguistics
• language vulnerability
• language endangerment
• language vitality
• language documentation
• minority languages
• serbia