Within certain Muslim youth communities in the UK, counter examples to Fishman’s scale for evaluating language vitality, exist, where the younger generation leads the way in renewing, executing and expanding the repertoire of their religio-cultural heritage. Although this emerging extended repertoire of song and poetry is plainly multilingual in nature, recitation and performance of the community heritage languages, Urdu and Punjabi, feature strongly. The question remains whether such growing familiarity with poetic language and form can affect positively on upturning the language shift these communities are undergoing in their third and fourth generations. Although there is evidence that singing and reciting in other minority language settings, secular and religious, are not unusual pursuits of youth, it is asserted that an accompanying religious revival offers an important extra, galvanising, boost to the process of potentially upturning language shift. It is proposed that available scales for assessing language vitality are insufficient in the face of intricate diasporic minority language environs.