This policy, often reinforced by punishing children caught speaking the minority language at school, unfortunately proved quite successful with a number of minority languages, and one can conclude that the lack of education in a minority language is one major factor for its demise. For this reason vernacular education is deemed a major goal in most language movements.
- The reasons for the importance of vernacular education within a language movement are: (1) vernacular education will instill children with a sense of pride in their native tongue and culture which counteract the sense of inferiority long connected with minority languages (c f. Ethnicity above); the vernacular language can then be raised to the level of a prestige language such as for example Manx on the Isle of Man (Gregor, 1980); (2) vernacular education serves to develop a child's command of the language in an attempt to make it a viable medium in the modem world; (3) vernacular education will enable those children living in an area with a linguistic minority, but who themselves have no command of the minority language, to learn it. This would facilitate integration into the linguistic community and hopefully prevent ostracization or language shift.