Critical Assessment: UNESCO's LVE Framework

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Critical Assessment:
In the Unesco's LVE framework there are several crucial caveats,
None of the factors should be used alone, they should be used in together to assess language vitality.
All factors cannot be treated equally, they have to weighed as per their relevance. Factor 1, 3, & 4 are of crucial importance to all languages.
The grades from the assessment of factors not meant for quantitative analysis, rather they are indicators for qualitative interpretations.
Apart from these there are certain shortcomings in the frame work:
1. Lack of clarity in the definition of notions like 'speaker' and 'reference community' are not clear. At one hand, it is very difficult to identify the total number of speaker, data from reliable source are mostly scarce in nature, while working with minority groups. On the other hand it is also equally difficult to decide on whom to include in the reference question is left unanswered, in a country like India attitude such as pride and shame are associated with language situations.
2. It would be more insightful in assessing whether materials for language educations and literacy are actively used by the community than assessing their availability. In the case study above Angika and kachchi orthography is available, yet the total number of publications and other activities associated with literacy does not show an active community participation1.
3. Reminiscence of the western dominance of One Language, One Nation and/or community was found throughout the tool. It fails to take in to account the societal multilingualism while assessing language vitality. In the Indian context multilingualism has been the norm, languages here coexist in additive2 framework.
4. The tool relays heavily on secondary data, from sources like census and other governmental agency, accuracy of the data is not guaranteed in such cases. Further the available data is also not adequate, and relaying on data from a single informant does not yield consistent response across the community. Thus a detailed field work is necessary
In Lewis & Simons (2006) EGIDS proposal heavily focuses on Intergenerational transmission, it provides more detailed description of the levels and between the levels. Overall EGIDS proposal simplifies assessment, in the sense it does not take in to account the difference between the absolute and relative speakers strength, community's language attitude, government's policies, and existing documentation. Further the notion of language and language use is 'Pre-Andreson' and their strict adherence to the monolingual model3 highly constrains it reliabilty.

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