An accurate language vitality status is important to revitalization efforts. Having an accurate vitality status can affect language attitudes and factor into institutions’ partnership or grant decisions. Today, online databases are often the first places people look for language vitality information. In cases where a language is very endangered or reawakening, these databases will often read as “dormant” or “extinct”.
This was the case with Tunica when the Kuhpani Yoyani Luhchi Yoroni (Tunica Language Working Group) looked at Tunica’s language vitality status online. Though the revitalization efforts that the group has undertaken has produced a number of L2 speakers, online gatekeepers and their databases did not reflect that fact.
This paper covers the experiences of the group as it worked to have the language’s vitality accurately reflected online. The results show how a positive change in language vitality status can open the door to other digital domains for the language, while also showing that the contested and ill-defined criteria for a language to qualify for non-dead status continues to stymie efforts to have language vitality accurately reflected across all digital domains.