The ideological foundations of Breton and Lower Sorbian language revitalization through education and their consequences for new speakers

Breton (Brittany, France) and Lower Sorbian (Brandenburg, Germany) are two of the many endangered minority languages currently undergoing revitalization. In their cases, given that intergenerational transmission in a family setting has mostly ceased, language revitalization takes the form of educational initiatives, such as the immersion program Diwan in Brittany and the bilingual program Witaj in Brandenburg. The article argues that the differences in language ideologies and attitudes of language revitalizers, which form the often unexpressed and unaddressed ideological foundations of these programs, have led to divergences in results of revitalization of Breton and Lower Sorbian.

These divergences can have significant consequences for the new speakers of these languages produced through educational programs. Brittany's Diwan schools, which construes Breton as relevant to modern identities and capable of functioning outside the educational context, can be claimed to be producing new speakers in whose lives Breton will play a considerable role. By using foreign language teaching strategies and struggling to provide a vibrant life for Lower Sorbian after school, Witaj, in turn, does keep the minority language alive, but much more as a school subject than as a viable means of communication.