As of August 2017, these seven videos are the most viewed selections under the typed YouTube search "language revitalization." They vary by length and view count. However, view count does not equal the quality of the content. The more effective messages about this little-known scientific field are written in descending order in this list, until it reaches the best explanation and application.
7. Wedding Story in the Ho Language (Enduring Voices)
At approximately 24,000 views, this video contains simple use of voice-over, slideshow images, and background music. It tells a story in the Ho language as part of a language revitalization workshop. There are no subtitles, but the images are supposed to guide the viewer in what is going on; however, even that can get confusing.
6. Living Language: Menominee Language Revitalization (Wisconsin Public Television Education)
It revolves around a family of Menominee speakers. The Menominee words the father spoke corresponded with weather, daily life and conversations. It would have helped if the Bob Marley song he was singing had Menominee lyrics, which ultimately broke the immersion. There is, however, B-roll footage of heavy Wisconsin snow showcased throughout the video, as though implying that the path to establishing a Menominee-speaking community is a hard one.
5. Yapese Language Importance and Identity (Enduring Voices)
This video is about a Yapese girl being interviewed by Enduring Voices about her reasons for joining a workshop. While the previous video dealt with a personal account, this video brings the discussion closer to actually working to preserve the Yap language; and unlike the previous "Enduring Voices" video, this video does not overwhelm the viewer with an unfamiliar language. She talks about her desire to speak Yapese and even ends the video teaching the interviewer the Yapese words for "hello" and "thank you."
4. Hacking Language Learning (TEDx)
This video had more to do with language acquisition than endangered languages themselves. Dr. Quinn talks about his background as a field linguist, while deconstructing the fear of learning a new language by starting with simple concepts, such as prepositions and other small words. However, the video only shows Dr. Quinn in his speech and does not make use of showing the PowerPoint slides in post-production.
3. Hebrew - An Ancient Language Revived (Langfocus)
This is quite a bizarre video, for it is about the history and features of the Hebrew language narrated in Japanese by a Canadian English-speaking YouTuber. But it is educational as it explores the history of the Hebrew language being revived along with the modern State of Israel. The background music is a little blaring and is hard to hear his voice. Paul does make use of pictures of Israel past and present.
2. Circassian Language Preservation (Jonty Yamisha)
The speaker talked about his Circassian identity then about the Circassian identity as a whole. What brought this video into #2 is his speech about being both a student and a teacher. In both areas, Yamisha explained the difficulties that are present in language revitalization, even with positive progress. He also used humor to lighten people up on a serious topic. Unlike the previous speech, this speech makes use of the PowerPoint slides by showing them. There was also an extended Q&A session at the end.
1. Rising Voices: Revitalizing the Lakota Language (The Language Conservancy)
This documentary shows Lakota speakers as sports announcers, teachers and even former President Obama. It gets into Lakota culture, as well as interviews with multiple language speakers of all age groups. Through the use of subtitles and archival videos and pictures, the documentary explains the history and plight (past and present) of the Lakota and the destruction of Lakota-speaking community. I think this is the most effective out of all seven of the videos because it shows language revitalization in action outside of the workshops and in the basketball court and daily life.
Although all of these videos have educational value, there are some down the list that deserve more views. The need for updated software and compelling graphics is not an important factor, but a video does need to grab the viewers' attention by using a lot of the post-production utilities that are available. It also needs to be realistic about what information it conveys in order to highlight that there is a problem that needs addressing.
