"seminal [...] trailblazing" -- Avi Kumar, The Times of Israel
"The "brilliance" in the book "is the wide range of detailed knowledge Zuckermann displays. In discussing Modern Israeli Hebrew, he provides numerous examples which reveal not just his full control of the language and of Yiddish and other relevant languages, but an original understanding of the use and history of the items he discusses." -- Prof. Bernard Spolsky , Hebrew Higher Education
"Zuckermann aims to ground Revivalistics in an ethics of wellbeing, and hence a utilitarian case for revival, linked to methodological practices of bottom-up community led but expert-supported, activity [...] Ideological considerations [...] are inextricably bound up in all the processes he discusses, from the secular/religious/national debates related to Hebrew [...] to the linguicide (language killing) and glottophagy (language eating) relations of domination in settler colonial history, both part of an historically extended set of linguistic injustices that colonisation wreaked upon the Indigenous populations of Australia.These two cases, Hebrew and Barngarla, underscore the critical need for historicization of the circumstances of languages weakened by political events and the ideologies that produced those events." -- Prof. Joseph Lo Bianco , Language & Communication
"It is a book that very much reflects the author's fascinating and multifaceted journey from his formative works critically analysing his Israeli mother tongue's revival efforts through to his passion and focus on language reclamation and empowerment of Aboriginal languages and culture in Australia. This book speaks strongly to his desire to right the wrongs of the past and bringing what he describes as 'sleeping beauties' back to life. In recounting these intriguing language journeys, Zuckermann explores the 'various moral, aesthetic, psychological, cognitive, and economic benefits of language revival" that encompass "social justice, social harmony, diversity, wellbeing, mental health, and employability'." -- Prof. Hēmi Whaanga , Journal of the Linguistic Society of New Zealand
"Zuckermann offers practical methods for reviving languages...uses humour...Where documentary linguistics puts the language at the centre, Zuckermann posits that revivalistics should put language custodians, its speakers, at its centre." -- Dr Joshua Nash , Language Documentation and Description
"[A]nybody looking for transdisciplinary ideas of how to study or practically approach an endangered language will find many new and promising ideas in this book... Specialists to the field will be interested in the book...particularly in the detailed accounts of language hybridization in reclaimed Hebrew and in the many research ideas proposed in the second part of the book. Individual chapters can be assigned for reading in classes." -- Prof. Patrick Heinrich , Università Ca' Foscari di Venezia, Linguist List
"Revivalistics is a masterpiece that is both scholarly and social-minded [...] groundbreaking." -- Dr Timothy Haines, The Australian Journal of Anthropology
"brilliant...better seen as two books" -- Prof. Bernard Spolsky , 2021, Review of Revivalistics, Hebrew Higher Education 23.
"Milestone book" -- Shane Desiatnik, Australian Jewish News
"Zuckermann is a polyglot polymath and revivalistics is an ambitious volume" -- Rokhl Kafrissen, the cultural critic
"Will be referred to for many years to come" -- Gil Robertson, Historian , Port Lincoln Times
"very important" -- – Prof. Norman Simms , 2020. Review of Ghil'ad Zuckermann, ''Revivalistics: From the Genesis of Israeli to Language Reclamation in Australia and Beyond''. New York: Oxford University Press, 2020; Mentalities/Mentalités 34.1.
"exuberant" -- Dr Hilary Smith , 2021, Review of Revivalistics, TESOLANZ (Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages Aotearoa New Zealand) News, Volume 37, Issue 1, Autumn 2021, p. 23.
"Zuckermann aims to ground Revivalistics in an ethics of wellbeing, and hence a utilitarian case for revival, linked to methodological practices of bottom-up community led but expert-supported, activity [...] Ideological considerations [...] are inextricably bound up in all the processes he discusses, from the secular/religious/national debates related to Hebrew [...] to the linguicide (language killing) and glottophagy (language eating) relations of domination in settler colonial history, both part of an historically extended set of linguistic injustices that colonisation wreaked upon the Indigenous populations of Australia." "These two cases, Hebrew and Barngarla, underscore the critical need for historicization of the circumstances of languages weakened by political events and the ideologies that produced those events" -- Prof. Joseph Lo Bianco, 2020, "Ideologies of sign language and their repercussions in language policy determination", Language & Communication 75: 83-93.
"A must read for anyone interested in the field of endangered languages and language revival ... a sensitively and brilliantly written work." -- Arathi Raghunathan, Sociolinguistic Studies
"This exuberant book by Ghil'ad Zuckermann sweeps from the revival of Hebrew in Israel to the revival of the Indigenous Barngarla language in South Australia, drawing common threads into a theory of what he has coined as 'revivalistics' . . . . In his characteristic high-spirited style, he demonstrates this hybridity through detailed analysis of the phonology, syntax, morphology, and lexis of modern Israeli." -- TESOLANZ
"This groundbreaking linguistic manuscript is wide-ranging in its scope. . . . Zuckermann seeks to use the experience of the Hebrew revival to assist Barngarla, and through Barngarla, other Australian and global languages, in the process of revival. This is not the first Aboriginal language to undergo revival, but Zuckermann's remarkable achievement came at the time, and arguably assisted in the process, of the recognition of the Barngarla people's native title. . . . Revivalistics is a masterpiece that is both scholarly and social-minded." -- Timothy Haines, The Australian Journal of Anthropology
"To linguists Ghil'ad Zuckermann is already something of a hero. This book shows why. Professor Zuckermann's account of his work with language reclamation and salvation is as fascinating, enthralling and gripping as any great fictional adventure story, but with a purpose and meaning greater and more noble than any Allan Quatermain or Indiana Jones." -- Stephen Fry
"In Revivalistics, technically rigorous in content yet approachable in presentation, Ghil'ad Zuckermann mounts a persuasive argument that the language spoken by ordinary Israelis is best thought of as a hybrid. He uses the story of the successful revival of Hebrew to propose how near-extinct Aboriginal languages of Australia can be brought back to life with immeasurable benefit to their traditional owners. With a multitude of the world's languages staring oblivion in the face, this will be a key text for the new discipline that Zuckermann calls revivalistics." -- JM Coetzee
"Zuckermann is a polymath as well as a polyglot and Revivalistics is a brilliant study, challenging the conventional wisdom in its field, making good use of comparative material, sparkling with perceptive one-liners and making an eloquent argument for the revival of endangered languages." -- Peter Burke, University of Cambridge
"Zuckermann gives a linguist's insider view of his native tongue, Hebrew as they now speak it in Israel, including its rollicking humor. He shows how a language could literally 'arise from the dead' but also how different is the task of reviving other languages today." -- Nicholas Ostler, Foundation for Endangered Languages
