Although the ideal in work with endangered languages is to design collaborative projects that integrate documentation and support for revitalization from the outset, the reality is that many language workers must rely on existing products of documentation to create materials. Traditional documentation, including reference grammars, dictionaries,…

I outline the concept of "Language Hotspots", seeking to direct public and professional awareness of the global language extinction crisis. The loss of a single language leaves the science of linguistics impoverished and yet even few linguists realize that the vast majority of "language families" will likely be lost by the end…

The success of programs that are focused on revitalizing an endangered language depends on careful implementation. This paper examines four common mistakes that are made when linguists and anthropologists get involved with documenting endangered languages or participating in revitalization efforts: a failure to appreciate the complexity of the…

The Gong are a minority group of western Thailand whose language has been in decline for over a century. In the 1920s, the first report of the language predicted its imminent demise. Since then, it has contacted to two villages outside its traditional territory. The language there is under threat, particularly since the 1970s with roads, schools,…

Language learning and teaching of endangered languages have many features and needs that are quite different from the teaching of world languages. Groups whose languages are endangered try to turn language loss around; many new language teaching and learning strategies are emerging, to suit the special needs and goals of language revitalization.…

As an offshoot of the Canadian Indigenous Languages and Literacy Development Institute (CILLDI), the Department of Linguistics at the University of Alberta offers a Community Linguist Certificate (CLC) program to speakers of First Peoples' languages of (mainly) Western Canada. The CLC program provides linguistic analysis and language documentation…

This paper explores the distance between documenting and revitalizing endangered languages and indicates critical points at which applied linguistics can play a role. We look at language documentation, language revitalization and their relationship. We then provide some examples from our own work. We see the lack of applied linguistics as a…

Language choice (LC) for literacy must consider mother tongue, language of first sight, local lingua francas, and any readily accessible world language. Common but false assumptions regarding LC are noted: multilingualism as a barrier to development, the necessity of a world language, and the permanance of language patterns. (Contains four…

Discusses globalization and diversification within four language issues for adult literacy: (1) the spread of a small number of world languages, (2) development of the varieties of language, (3) choice of language for education and official life, and (4) disappearing languages. (JP)