ELL: Measuring the oral use of languages

[Arregi Iparragirre. Xabier]

Dear colleagues:

I am a sociolinguist who is studying the oral use of the Basque language.

As you probably know, Basque is one of the oldest languages in Europe.
Nowadays the Basque community is about 600,000 people, that belong to two
different states (Spain and France).  Due to historical reasons, the use
of Basque is far to be normalized.

The aim of this study is to quantify the oral use of the language. For
that, in the methodology that we follow, a big group of observers spread
on the Basque Country record the language that people use in oral
communication. Different aspects of the communication are directly
registered, and later interpreted.

I am aware of some studies on the language-knowledge of speakears of
minority languages, but, as far as I know, the ORAL USE of the language
has been rarely measured.

Does anybody have information about other studies on the oral use of
minority languages?  I am particularly interested in the methodological
aspects of this kind of works. Any information about this is appreciated.

Thank you,

Olatz Altuna
Euskal Soziolinguistika Institutua Sortzen
Basque Sociolinguistics Institute Project

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