Word.ws English Dictionary

language nest

language nest noun: a language revitalisation programme in which children and non-native speakers acquire the endangered language through immersion in special-purpose locations called 'nests'.

Noun

language nest (plural language nests)

  1. A language revitalisation programme in which children and non-native speakers acquire the endangered language through immersion in special-purpose locations called 'nests'.
    • From our viewpoint, getting a language nest established is essential. It is very difficult to remain motivated to use the target language on a regular basis if there is no circumstance that necessitates it.2018, Leanne Hinton, The Routledge Handbook of Language Revitalization
    • There are now language nests all over the world—Besides New Zealand and Hawai'i, there are language nests (and immersion preschools for endangered languages by other labels) in mainland United States (for example, the Esther Martinez fund of the Adminstration for Native Americans funded proposals...2018, Kenneth L. Rehg, Lyle Campbell, The Oxford Handbook of Endangered Languages, page 447
  2. The location itself.

Forms of language nest

plurallanguage nests

Origin of language nest

Calque of Māori kōhanga reo.

Questions about language nest

What does language nest mean?
Language nest means a language revitalisation programme in which children and non-native speakers acquire the endangered language through immersion in special-purpose locations called 'nests'.
What part of speech is language nest?
Language nest is a noun.
What is the plural of language nest?
The plural of language nest is language nests.

Words near language nest in the dictionary

  1. language learner
  2. language learners
  3. language learning
  4. language model
  5. language models
  6. language nest
  7. language nests
  8. language of flowers
  9. language organ
  10. language planning
  11. language police

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: language nest (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “language nest.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/language_nest. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.