Indigenous communities, linguists, teachers, and language activists have been developing methods to revitalise endangered languages over several decades. Not only are these methods diverse, they are usually implemented in various ways according to local needs and aspirations. Language revitalisation methods focus on proficiency, but there is also…

Indigenous communities worldwide face threats to their linguistic and epistemic heritage with the unabated spread of dominant colonial languages and global monocultures, such as English and the neoliberal, imperialistic worldview. There is considerable strain on the relatively few Elders and speakers of Indigenous languages to maintain cultures…

Australia is a 'hotspot' of Indigenous language endangerment, but has a growing number of language revival projects. We describe one such project which is using a community development approach for the revival of the Gamilaraay language in north-eastern New South Wales. As a result of colonisation there are now no fluent speakers of Gamilaraay and…

Explores historical and intellectual causes for the lack of interdisciplinarity between language education and development economics. Reviews three development settings in Bangladesh, Egypt, and Latin America that illustrate the need to devolve responsibility for development and notes language and literacy play a vital role in this process.…

Examines language use and language preference of children aged 6 to 15 and their parents at the University of Botswana. Results indicate that the majority of the children speak Setswana and English, despite the fact that they come from different language groups. Language preferences of children differ from that of parents. Shows the growth of…

Addresses the issue of language planning in pluralist Ethiopia. Offers an evaluative appraisal of the new policy that considers a number of obstacles to implementation of the policy and questions the move towards the preference of the roman alphabet to the Ethiopic syllabic writing system. (33 references) (Author/CK)

Examines two initiatives to revitalize Quechua, the language of the Incas: Bolivia's 1994 reform incorporating the provision of bilingual intercultural education; and a community-based effort to incorporate Quichua as a second language instruction in a school in Ecuador. Points out that census records and sociolinguistic studies document a…

Discusses a community-based nonformal education movement in Papua New Guinea to use hundreds of the country's languages to teach initial literacy in local preschool and adult education programs. The article describes this movement, the proposed government reform of the English-only formal education system and the ensuing conflicts. (37 references)…