Internet and the survival of the Estonian language at home and abroad (II)

Dec 4, 2020 Estonian Life No. 49 2020

The survival of the languages of small nations is dependent not only on the relatively new exigencies of the internet and cyber environment but also the influence of political, economic and cultural forces.

There is some evidence that a surviving living language population must have at least 100,000 native speakers. But this must be accompanied by having their own territory where they are in control of their language rights, and this right must be recognized.

Globally the human rights doctrine does not include the right of having a language of your own. The European Union, with its 24 officially recognized languages (including Estonian) adopted the Erasmus+program in 2013. The smaller member states expected funding assistance for language training for its minorities, but the support was allocated for languages more popular for its potential students – English, French, German, Spanish, Italian.

Internet and the survival of the Estonian language at home and abroad (I)

What harm accrues to the communities that have lost their native language? It’s universally agreed among scholars that upon the death of a language, the wherewithal and capacity to understand a culture who spoke…

Laas Leivat, Toronto

Internet and the survival of the Estonian language at home and abroad (II)

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