In February and March 2024, ELP hosted the first annual Ready to Revitalize, an 8-week online course in project planning for language revitalization. It was an honor to gather with some truly dedicated language champions from around the world, share knowledge, and build skills and connections to support their language work. 

Ready to Revitalize grew out of the annual Language Documentation Webinars which ELP has been hosting, in partnership with the Language Documentation Training Center, since 2019. These 8-week webinar series share introductory skills in language documentation with hundreds of learners around the world, and each year, they conclude with one session on language revitalization. This session is always extremely popular, and each year, participants have requested more learning opportunities in language revitalization. 

So, in 2023, the ELP staff began designing a separate 8-week course in language revitalization, with the same goals as the documentation webinars: to share practical, usable knowledge in support of language work. We wanted the course to be open to anyone in the world, with no prior experience or knowledge required - everyone from absolute beginners to experienced community revitalization practitioners was invited to apply. The weekly topics included:

•  Week 1 : Introduction and Getting to Know Each Other
• Week 2: Language Planning, Strategy, and Visioning
• Week 3: Language Revitalization Methods
• Week 4: Collaborative Work and Partnerships
• Week 5: Funding, Human Resources & Material Resources
• Week 6: Language and Place
• Week 7: Language and Technology
• Week 8: Participant Presentations

When we announced Ready to Revitalize, we were overwhelmed by the interest in the course. We designed the program for 20 people, to ensure it was a small enough group that everyone could comfortably participate and get to know each other. We expected a few dozen applications at most - instead, more than 400 people applied to participate in the course. It was very difficult to choose among the hundreds of wonderful language champions who applied, but in the end, we invited a cohort of 20 people from 18 countries, with a wide variety of interests, skills, and experiences. We chose participants according to a few general criteria. We wanted this course to be available to people who had limited or no access to other learning opportunities in language revitalization; who had a clear idea or goal for language revitalization work in their communities; and whose situations were particularly urgent for revitalization work (such as a severe language endangerment situation, or a context of political or social oppression). But they all had one thing in common: a deep commitment to uplifting their languages and communities, and a desire to grow their skills in language revitalization. 

“I have been in this language [revitalization] program for a long time in isolation. My voice was not loud enough to be heard from a distance. With ELP I think they heard my voice.” -Gibrilla Kamara, Mani, Sierra Leone

For 8 weeks, participants met weekly on Zoom to learn, share their experiences, and build connections with each other. A key part of the course was building relationships among everyone in Ready to Revitalize. Every week, participants spent time in small group discussions, sharing their own experiences and perspectives across borders, and finding inspiration and support from their peers. This sense of community and solidarity is at the heart of ELP’s work, and we are overjoyed to have been able to create a safe and meaningful space for language champions to learn from each other. 

“It's been super to see such amazing teamwork among all of the ELP staff, and to meet others working actively and passionately. Knowing this is a worldwide movement is one thing, but starting to feel part of an international community is another.” -Jo-Anne Ferreira, Trinidadian French Creole, Trinidad and Tobago

But beyond sharing usable knowledge and building connections, Ready to Revitalize also provided participants with firsthand experience in envisioning, planning, and carrying out a revitalization project - and hands-on practice in writing grant proposals. From the first week, participants began devising a concrete project plan, thinking about questions like “what does my community need to move forward in language work right now?”, and “what realistic paths might bring my language community closer to our goals?” From there, they drafted more detailed project proposals, created estimated budgets, and thought through the ethical dimensions of the work they would undertake. By the end of the course, participants had created a fully fleshed out revitalization project plan, and written a grant proposal to submit to ELP.  

“I learned how to verbalize a plan of action, discuss, and listen. It gave me a sense of confidence in going forward and also an excuse to get started!” -Megan Gourd, Northern Paiute - Gidutikad Band, USA

We are very happy that this year, we were able to offer mini-grants to Ready to Revitalize participants, to support the revitalization projects they so carefully developed over the past two months. In the coming months, we will share about some of these projects*, and highlight the incredibly creative, innovative, and inspiring ways that course participants are working to revitalize their languages.

“Understanding that I can work with other people interested in revitalizing my language but most important, that our effort can spread beyond our local place, this is the most important thing I learned. Thank you.” -René Oswaldo González Pizarro, Ayuuk, Mexico

We offer our sincere thanks to our partners at the First Peoples’ Cultural Council for making it possible to offer funding for these small projects. Most of all, we want to thank the participants for sharing their time, their experiences, their knowledge, and their aspirations during this course. The ELP team learned a great deal from offering this course for the first time. Thanks to our experiences, and the insights and feedback shared by participants, we are looking forward to hosting an even better Ready to Revitalize at the beginning of 2025.

It was a privilege and a joy to share this space with such amazing language champions, and we cannot express this more beautifully than one of the course participants did:

 “The format used is more like learning circles, which we in the Pacific Islands refer to as ‘storying corners’, but I would rather use the analogy of ‘traffic junction’ or ‘intersection’ conversations. We are passing through a traffic congestion and happen to meet in the intersection waiting for the traffic to clear so we can pass through. While we are waiting, we engage in a dialogue on language revitalization, and this brief temporal space becomes a useful insightful juncture in our busy schedule about our own projects. Life is a journey that often takes us to paths where we cross with other people, and this is one of them - where the virtual space has been a brief interlude to reflect, learn and impact ideas where possible, with others we are most fortunate to meet. It was a very sacred temporal virtual space of learning for me because of respect and open dialogue.” -Course participant*, Papua New Guinea

*Not all places in the world are safe or welcoming for language revitalization work. It is of paramount importance for us to protect the safety and privacy of participants, so some projects and names will not be shared publicly.