EGIDS

Expanded Graded Intergenerational Disruption Scale

EGIDS is an expansion of Joshua Fishman's Graded Intergenerational Disruption Scale. Fishman first introduced GIDS in his book Reversing Language Shift. GIDS was designed with European languages in mind, especially Yiddish which is close to Fishman's heart. When GIDS was applied to languages outside of Europe, problems arose. Paul Lewis and Gary Simons took the task of expanding GIDS so that any language in the world could be scored using it, hence the Expanded Intergenerational Disruption Scale. Each level has a number and label, given below.

EGIDS Table

Level	Label	Description
0	International	The language is used internationally for a broad range of functions.
1	National	Language used in education, work, mass media, govt at the nationwide level.
2	Regional	The language is used for local and regional mass media and govt services.
3	Trade	The language is used for local and regional work by both insiders and outsiders.
4	Educational	Literacy in language is being transmitted through a system of public education. This is considered the level of sustainable literacy. In order to be scored a 4 the language must be at, or above a 4 in all FAMED conditions.
5	Written	The language is used orally by all generations and is effectively used in written form in parts of the community.
6a	Vigorous	The language is used orally by all generations and is being learned by children as their first language. This is considered the level of sustainable orality. In order to be scored a 6a the language must be at, or above a 6a in all FAMED conditions.
6b	Threatened	The language is used orally by all generations but only some of the child-bearing generation are transmitting it to their children.
7	Shifting	The child-bearing generation knows the language well enough to use it among themselves but none are transmitting it to their children.
8a	Moribund	The only remaining active speakers of the language are members of the grandparent generation.
8b	Nearly Extinct	The only remaining speakers of the language are members of the grandparent generation or older who have little opportunity to use the language.
9	Dormant	The language serves as a reminder of heritage identity for an ethnic community. No one has more than symbolic proficiency. This is the level of sustainable identity. This is the state where no fully proficient speakers remain but the language is still closely associated with the community identity and is used as a symbolic marker and reinforcer of that identity.
10	Extinct	No one retains a sense of ethnic identity associated with the language, even for symbolic purposes. This is the level of sustainable history.

from Lewis, M. P., & Simons, G. F. (2010). Assessing Endangerment: Expanding Fishman's GIDS. Romanian Review of Linguistics, 55(2), 103-120 available online

Sustainable Use Model

The EGIDS table above references levels of sustainability. There are four levels of sustainable use:

• Sustainable History: This corresponds to EGIDS level 10
• Sustainable Identity: This corresponds to EGIDS level 9
• Sustainable Orality: This corresponds to EGIDS level 6a
• Sustainable Literacy: This corresponds to EGIDS level 4

The idea is that a language is in a transitory state if it resides between these sustainable levels. It will either move up the scale toward a higher level of sustainability if active language development is occurring, or it will slide down the scale to a lower level of sustainability if there is no language development occurring. So if a language is a 6b, it is missing something crucial to keep up from the sustainable orality level of 6a. If something is not done to develop the language, it will never be a 61 and will in fact slide down to the sustainable identity level, EGIDS 9, eventually.

Sustainable History

A language is at the level of sustainable history when there are no longer any speakers of the language (L1 or otherwise), but there is enough documentation and it is being stored in a way to make it retrievable. All FAMED conditions must be at a level 10 or higher. See REAP

Sustainable Identity

A language is at the level of sustainable identity when there is a group of people who identify with the language as a part of their heritage, but there are still no speakers. All FAMED conditions must be at a level 9 or higher.

Sustainable Orality

A language is at the level of sustainable orality when the entire language community is using the language orally. This does not assume monolingualism, but that in a multilingual community, the language has its place and all members of the community use it according to those social norms. Also transmission to children is occurring in the entire community. All FAMED conditions must be at a level 6a or higher.

Sustainable Literacy

A language is at the level of sustainable literacy when the language has a written form, a corpus of some kind, and (most importantly) a sustainable institution teaching literacy to the community. A sustainable institution is most likely going to be government schools, but may be run by an NGO, or the community itself in some contexts. All FAMED conditions must be at a level 4 or higher.

FAMED Conditions

The FAMED conditions have been referenced several times already in this page. They are:

• Function
• Acquisition
• Motivation
• Environment
• Distinct Niche (formerly Diglossia)