The Expanded Graded Intergenerational Disruption Scale (EGIDS), developed by Lewis and Simons (2010), measures a language's status in terms of endangerment or development.
The table below shows the various levels on the scale:
| LEVEL | LABEL | DESCRIPTION | UNESCO |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0 | International | "The language is used internationally for a broad range of functions." | Safe |
| 1 | National | "The language is used in education, work, mass media, government at the nationwide level." | Safe |
| 2 | Regional | "The language is used for local and regional mass media and governmental services." | Safe |
| 3 | Trade | "The language is used for local and regional work by both insiders and outsiders." | Safe |
| 4 | Educational | "Literacy in the language is being transmitted through a system of public education." | Safe |
| 5 | Written | "The language is used orally by all generations and is effectively used in written form in parts of the community." | Safe |
| 6a | Vigorous | "The language is used orally by all generations and is being learned by children as their first language." | Safe |
| 6b | Threatened | "The language is used orally by all generations but only some of the child-bearing generation are transmitting it to their children." | Vulnerable |
| 7 | Shifting | "The child-bearing generation knows the language well enough to use it among themselves but none are transmitting it to their children." | Definitely Endangered |
| 8a | Moribund | "The only remaining active speakers of the language are members of the grandparent generation." | Severely Endangered |
| 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." | Critically Endangered |
| 9 | Dormant | "The language serves as a reminder of heritage identity for an ethnic community. No one has more than symbolic proficiency." | Extinct |
| 10 | Extinct | "No one retains a sense of ethnic identity associated with the language, even for symbolic purposes. " | Extinct |
The EGIDS model has become widely known, cited in 555 publications as of August 2021.
References
- Lewis, M. Paul; Simons, Gary F. (2010). "Assessing endangerment: Expanding Fishman's GIDS" (PDF). Revue roumaine de linguistique. 55 (2): 103–120. Retrieved 28 March 2020.
- "Language Status". Ethnologue. Retrieved 2022-07-01.
- "Google Scholar".