Introduction

The Vepsian language is classified as seriously endangered by UNESCO, and it is spoken by Veps, a Finno-Ugric minority of the Russian Federation. Over the course of the last century, Vepsian language use has declined and this decline has mainly been induced by Soviet language and economic policies. The promotion of Vepsian literacy and educational approaches followed accepted paradigms of language revival. In multiethnic Petrozavodsk, Veps interact with one another mostly in Russian, just like members of other ethnic groups. Since the beginning of the 1980s revival movement, the activists privileged literacy over orality in the promotion of Vepsian. The comprehensive presentation of Vepsian language ecology and Vepsian revival movement aims to investigate how and why certain language modalities and ways of promoting a minority language have gained more divulgation than others.