That's interesting, and makes complete sense--of course revivalism would produce hybrids--at the very least, since you can completely revive every single element of the order, you would be selecting, and your selection would have to follow from an existing frame, with its priorities and possibilities. Grammar would have to come before vocabulary, because you wouldn't revive a language by collecting words but, rather, but drawing upon models, and the analysis of those models would aim at their reproduction and that would involve "chunks" of discourse, without which individual words don't make much sense, anyway. So, none of that is "problematic." Regarding the rest of your questions, for the most part I don't know, but for this to really get off the ground it would have to be pioneered by first World, most likely white, populations for us to get a sense of how it would really work. the indigenous peoples are too bound up with dependencies and patronage, which might give them a better chance of succeeding, but on narrow terms and without too many implications for those trying to preserve ethnicities against globalization. A way to get started might be to use those quintessential leftist weapons, civil rights and human rights law, pioneering interpretations that grant new rights to "self-determination." It would require a paradigm shift, but even pushing for it would have a kind of organizing power to it.
I just went and had a quick look at Zuckerman. He is arguing that modern Hebrew, which he calls Israeli, is not really a revived Hebrew but rather is more like Yiddish with Hebrew vocabulary. In any case it is a hybrid and any "revived" language must be heavily marked by the mother tongues of the revivalists, and this includes the South Australian tongue he helped revive. I would be interested to hear what you think of this seeming emphasis on grammar over vocabulary, over pointing and naming, though I'm sure I don't grasp his argument fully.
And for those of us living in areas where we have, on one hand, total immersion in global capitalism, mass migration, and state-enforced atomisation, and on the other, attempts to revive indigenous languages and clan structures and rituals (like the potlatch - the indigenous here don't seem to think they can revive the clans without that ritual, though I don't know how much they today destroy wealth in the status wars that upset the old colonial authorities and how much they have simply reinvigorated gift exchange) what do you think a would-be revivalist of some white settler culture might be studying or asking of the indigenous revivalists if they would ever open up to him? Or is revivalism more likely only for longer-settled regions? Could it happen in an internationalist concrete jungle? It's maybe of interest that the recent attempt to build a gas pipeline across BC ran into opposition from some revivalists among the Wet'suwet'en. Any major resource project in Canada today requires the developers to buy off/in indigenous support and this was done to a point, but the gasline got the support of the elected council (in the band system set up by white government) and not the traditional hereditary clan chiefs. It seems almost all of the bien pensants around here sided with the need to recognize and promote the traditional non-elected chiefs. Whether this would have been the case had the chiefs taken different sides, I don't know (one contact of mine who is a decarbonisation activist admitted that his championing of hereditary rights would not have happened had those chiefs been pro-pipeline, and there are currently a bunch of white activists fighting some hereditary chiefs in a dispute over cutting old growth forest - maybe white revivalists will have to be greens?). In any case, that many among those who inhabit various branches of the state and related institutions are now willing to downplay democracy and champion clan chiefs is of note. How to build on it?
That's interesting, and makes complete sense--of course revivalism would produce hybrids--at the very least, since you can completely revive every single element of the order, you would be selecting, and your selection would have to follow from an existing frame, with its priorities and possibilities. Grammar would have to come before vocabulary, because you wouldn't revive a language by collecting words but, rather, but drawing upon models, and the analysis of those models would aim at their reproduction and that would involve "chunks" of discourse, without which individual words don't make much sense, anyway. So, none of that is "problematic." Regarding the rest of your questions, for the most part I don't know, but for this to really get off the ground it would have to be pioneered by first World, most likely white, populations for us to get a sense of how it would really work. the indigenous peoples are too bound up with dependencies and patronage, which might give them a better chance of succeeding, but on narrow terms and without too many implications for those trying to preserve ethnicities against globalization. A way to get started might be to use those quintessential leftist weapons, civil rights and human rights law, pioneering interpretations that grant new rights to "self-determination." It would require a paradigm shift, but even pushing for it would have a kind of organizing power to it.
I just went and had a quick look at Zuckerman. He is arguing that modern Hebrew, which he calls Israeli, is not really a revived Hebrew but rather is more like Yiddish with Hebrew vocabulary. In any case it is a hybrid and any "revived" language must be heavily marked by the mother tongues of the revivalists, and this includes the South Australian tongue he helped revive. I would be interested to hear what you think of this seeming emphasis on grammar over vocabulary, over pointing and naming, though I'm sure I don't grasp his argument fully.
And for those of us living in areas where we have, on one hand, total immersion in global capitalism, mass migration, and state-enforced atomisation, and on the other, attempts to revive indigenous languages and clan structures and rituals (like the potlatch - the indigenous here don't seem to think they can revive the clans without that ritual, though I don't know how much they today destroy wealth in the status wars that upset the old colonial authorities and how much they have simply reinvigorated gift exchange) what do you think a would-be revivalist of some white settler culture might be studying or asking of the indigenous revivalists if they would ever open up to him? Or is revivalism more likely only for longer-settled regions? Could it happen in an internationalist concrete jungle? It's maybe of interest that the recent attempt to build a gas pipeline across BC ran into opposition from some revivalists among the Wet'suwet'en. Any major resource project in Canada today requires the developers to buy off/in indigenous support and this was done to a point, but the gasline got the support of the elected council (in the band system set up by white government) and not the traditional hereditary clan chiefs. It seems almost all of the bien pensants around here sided with the need to recognize and promote the traditional non-elected chiefs. Whether this would have been the case had the chiefs taken different sides, I don't know (one contact of mine who is a decarbonisation activist admitted that his championing of hereditary rights would not have happened had those chiefs been pro-pipeline, and there are currently a bunch of white activists fighting some hereditary chiefs in a dispute over cutting old growth forest - maybe white revivalists will have to be greens?). In any case, that many among those who inhabit various branches of the state and related institutions are now willing to downplay democracy and champion clan chiefs is of note. How to build on it?