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.…

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…