This study explores language shift and maintenance of Indigenous languages in bilingual contact situations. It specifically examines how factors such as language attitudes favour and deter the use, maintenance and transmission of Nahuatl. Data on language attitudes were collected by means of interviews which covered the linguistic background,…

Young urban migrants can be valuable actors in projects that aim to document and revitalize their Indigenous languages, especially when these efforts involve new technologies. Based on data from a Huastec (Tének) language documentation project in Mexico, this article describes the digital interactions of young migrants in the documentation and…

This article uses cognitive measures previously developed within linguistic relativity research to explore the thinking patterns of Yucatec Maya-Spanish bilingual children in the Yucatan peninsula. These measures were designed to detect cognitive patterns associated with specific language patterns. Here, these measures are used to test whether 12…

The younger generations are considered one of the principal agents in the maintenance or shift of any language. In the cycle of the language maintenance, children learn their mother tongue, and pass it on to the future generations. The cycle is broken when they no longer speak the mother tongue. The language choices they make are particularly…

This paper reports on the family language policy (FLP) of three families in a Nahuatl community in Mexico. It investigates the role of: (1) parental experiences, beliefs, attitudes and expectations; (2) child practices; and (3) broader societal attitudes in shaping these policies. Drawing on survey and interview data, the study points to a tension…

Language revitalization efforts have been critiqued for creating and reproducing linguistic, epistemological, and pedagogical hierarchies that might run counter to a community's needs and interests. Drawing on a seven-year ethnographic and collaborative research with the Maya cultural promoters of the Caste War Museum in Tihosuco, Mexico, we…

Globally many minority and Indigenous communities are searching for ways to reclaim languages that have been marginalized by socioeconomic and political processes. These efforts often involve novel literacy practices. In this article, we draw from ethnographic data in Mexico and Nepal to ask, what are the opportunities and constraints of teaching…

In this paper, I examine the development, implementation, and results of utilizing three types of storybooks in a language revitalization classroom for students ages 5-12 learning Teotitlán del Valle Zapotec, an indigenous language of southern Mexico. Although each method used for creating books in Zapotec generated a positive reaction from…

Within the last two decades, there has been increased interest in how technology supports Indigenous language revitalization and reclamation efforts. This paper considers the effect technology has on Indigenous language learning and teaching, while conceptualizing how language educators, speakers, learners, and technology users holistically…

This article critically examines bilingual, intercultural education policies and practices in El Salvador and Mexico. In the context of legacies of assimilation and neoliberal homogenization, certain kinds of citizenship become prioritized over others. This is visible where performances of local identity clash with state mandates about educational…

This research focuses on the design of resources for both reappraising the knowledge of a native language for those who speak or have notions of Nahuatl, and getting familiar with terms for those who do not speak this language. An audio-lexicon Spanish-Nahuatl, ALEN, was developed taking advantage of new technologies, especially mobile devices and…

This article focuses on language displacement in the High Mountains of Central Veracruz. It begins by presenting a brief historical account of the Nahuatl presence in the region in order to distinguish this group from other Nahuatl-speaking groups. Later, it describes the situation of language loss that is currently underway and argues that the…

Ethnolinguistic Vitality Theory (EVT) asserts that status, demographic and institutional support (IS) factors make up the vitality of ethnolinguistic groups within intergroup relations. Specifically, IS factor refers to the extent to which a language group enjoys representation in the various institutions of a society, in particular, mass media,…

The Bilingual Advantage draws together researchers from education, economics, sociology, anthropology and linguistics to examine the economic and employment benefits of bilingualism in the US labor market, countering past research that shows no such benefits exist. Collectively, the authors draw on novel methodological approaches and new data to…

This study used oral survey methods to examine first the diversity of Meso-American languages and second the potential language maintenance or loss of these languages among Meso-American language speakers in Wiregrass country (North Florida-South Georgia). Language shift, the process of gradually changing from one first language to another first…