From discouragement to self-empowerment. Insights from an ethnolinguistic vitality survey among the Kashubs in Poland.

The paper relates the results of an ethnolinguistic vitality (ELV) survey among the Kashubs in Poland. The results reveal two interrelated layers of ELV: (1) an individual ELV reflected in language use and shaped by personal experience, emotions, and language proficiency; (2) a more collective ELV associated with the perception of the group's language strength, its status and utility. The most surprising predictor of linguistic praxis in our study, in addition to language skills, was the positive impact of experienced discouragement on language use.