Promotion of bilingualism in society and its significance in preserving endangered languages
Historically, languages struggle to maintain their existence by retaining their speakers. With the recent attention and extensive literature on the topic, bilingualism is widely discussed as a means to preserve minority languages. Although the literature recognizes bilinguals as a group and some language models explicitly incorporate them, they are still often portrayed primarily as a transitional stage in language acquisition. Our work advances this literature by treating bilinguals as a distinct speaker class within a threestate modeling framework, defined by their own identity and social status.We analyze the stability and long-term persistence of this group under different social and demographic conditions. We further illustrate the model using Manx language data, showing how a bilingual minority community contributed to the revival of a language once considered extinct.
Authors
- Kushani De Silva (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1958-3889)
- Chami Kariyapperuma
Publication Details
- Journal
- Advances in Complex Systems
- Published
- 2026-09-11
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1142/s0219525926500050
- Primary Topic
- Language and cultural evolution
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 0.00