In this presentation, I will report results from a study on Ladino revitalisation. Ladino is the heritage language of the Sephardic diaspora, whose ancestors were expelled from Spain in 1492. It is spoken by minority groups in Turkey, Israel, USA, and other countries. Its survival is threatened; however, during the Covid pandemic, the Sephardic diaspora resorted to online activities to create opportunities to hear, speak, and revitalise the language. This has attracted new audiences and contributed to forming new Ladino speakers; amongst them, the researcher himself.

There are few previous studies on Ladino teaching and learning. Teaching experiences and course outlines are presented by Refael (2001), Koén-Sarano (2001), and Santa Puche (2001). Gerson Şarhon (2011) describes young persons’ (de)motivation for learning Ladino. Otherwise, Sephardic studies focus on ethnolinguistic descriptions (Kirschen, 2020), Sephardic history (Benbassa & Rodrigue, 2000), or philology, folklore, and musicology (Refael, 2001). Of interest for the present study are Held (2010) and Yebra López (2021), who see virtual meeting spaces as a means of building new communities of speakers. In 2022, I conducted interviews via Zoom with nine activists engaged in Ladino revitalisation. The purpose was to gain an overview of the many activities undertaken, and to identify needs for supporting future activities. The study was inspired by a Revivalistics approach (Zuckermann, 2021), combining perspectives from applied linguistics, and educational research. The interviews were transcribed and submitted to a thematic content analysis. The results give insights into viable forms for continued language revitalisation and community building, and pinpoint needs to be further addressed. Online activities stand out as fundamental for Ladino revitalisation. They enable people across the world to build virtual communities where learners can connect with mother tongue speakers. This alleviates difficulties connected to the diasporic nature of Ladino and help building a sense of togetherness. Some interviewees, though, expressed a lack of training in language pedagogy and mentioned a wish for online discussions with other teachers. They also commented on the need for qualitative, online dictionaries and other, easily available resources.