At the outset of the twenty-first century, the survival of many minority and indigenous languages is threatened by globalization and the ubiquity of dominant languages such as English in the worlds of communication and commerce. In a number of cases, these negative trends are being resisted by grassroots activists and governments. Indeed, there…

Since the second half of the twentieth century, post-colonial governments have commonly sought to revitalize the indigenous languages their imperialist predecessors hoped to eradicate. Although the impetus to revitalize is shared, the question of excluding or including the non-indigenous majority in the revitalization process, and encouraging them…

Through a comparison of France and Germany, this article investigates why the overall conception of multilingualism promoted by the education systems of the two countries favours the teaching of "useful" European standard languages over that of minority and migrant languages that are conceived in merely cultural terms. Adopting a…

The former British Labour Government acknowledged that religious practices play an important role in the development of children's identities [DCFS. (2009). "Your child, your schools, our future: building a 21st century schools system." London: HMSO; DfES (2007). "Curriculum review: Diversity and citizenship." London: HMSO].…

The aim of this paper is to examine the increased potential for language change from the micro-level, given the new domains in which minority languages are present in the global era. Drawing on the theoretical notion of sociolinguistic scales this paper presents a comparative account of the changing positions of the Irish and Inari Sami languages.…

The languages of Klingon and Na'vi, both created for media, are also languages that have garnered much media attention throughout the course of their existence. Speakers of these languages also utilize social media and information technologies, specifically websites, in order to learn the languages and then put them into practice. While teaching a…

Fettes (2004) asserts that "politico-strategies" of languages are no longer viable frameworks for "national and community policy". Rather, he proposes the development of "geostrategies of interlingualism", i.e. linguistic strategies which promote international communication equitably and efficiently, whilst respecting…

Promoting diversity has become a prominent goal in language-in-education policy discourse in two broad contexts. On the one hand, language policies take on the challenge of maintaining and developing "de facto" linguistic and cultural diversity through language acquisition planning; on the other hand, they portray themselves as active…