Indigenous people of the world fight to maintain our lifeways, culture, and more specifically our languages. Speakers have endured waves of violence and persecution and in the face of that still fought to preserve and bring back languages. Language loss has been observed by communities and linguists and each figures out ways to document and…

This research based on my master's thesis explores Nahkawewin language revitalization. This study draws on the language nest model, which first originated with Maori grandmothers and their grandchildren in the 1970s. In this study, my mother and I created what I refer to as a "mini" language nest in both of our homes to teach my children…

This paper focuses on the development, planning, and implementation of Numu (Northern Paiute) language classes at the University of Nevada, Reno. The authors' engagement with the Numu classes as well as the description and analysis presented in this paper are guided by principles of decolonization, language reclamation, and community-based…

This article takes a linguistic anthropological approach to analyzing multilingualism in the linguistic landscape of the Amazonian city of Tena, Ecuador, a key locus of indigenous Kichwa language revitalization, identity formation, and politics. Following recent scholarly reconsiderations of multilingual linguistic landscapes as sites of…

Language planning and policy (LPP), as a field of research, emerged to solve the "problem" of multilingualism in newly independent nation-states. LPP's principal emphasis was the reproduction of one-state, one-language policies. Indigenous languages were systematically erased through top-down, colonial medium-of-instruction policies,…

The Italian linguistic space has radically changed through the onset of the new millennium due to the presence of innovative multiple linguistic practices that have taken place as a consequence of deterritorialization processes. Furthermore, Latino diaspora in recent years have fostered the appearance of new forms of Global Spanishes (García and…

Recent scholarship indicates several benefits of mother tongue education (MTE) in supporting student learning. Within one Mayan community in Guatemala, Ixil is the mother tongue spoken at home and faces extinction due to Indigenous oppression and genocide. This qualitative case study highlights efforts of 13 teachers and administrators at one…

This article reviews hegemonic impositions of language and culture over the history of the Southwest North American Region, beginning with Spanish imperial attempts to erase the existing linguistic and cultural practices of Indigenous communities. It goes on to consider the educational processes by which English language and American culture were…

Quechua language education and research has long been relegated to rural areas and elementary schools of the Andes. Nonetheless, current language policy in the southern Peruvian region of Cusco has opened new opportunities for Quechua, a minoritized Indigenous language, to be taught in cities and towns and in high schools. In this sociolinguistic…

This paper looks at current grassroots efforts to revitalise Yucatec Maya, an indigenous language of Mexico, in social media and more specifically on Facebook. In contrast to the limitations of institutional language promotion, the inclusion of Maya on Facebook shows the possibilities that social networks offer not only for actual use of…

Among Oklahoma's 2,636-member Wichita tribe, octogenarian Doris McLemore is the sole person who fluently speaks the native language. And Terri Parton, president of Wichita and Affiliated Tribes, says that makes her both a treasure and an imperiled, cultural linchpin. Developing a coterie of community-based American Indians who are restoring,…

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…

This article expands our understanding of how language-minoritized children's communicative competence interrelates with schooling. It features a verbal performance by a young Native American girl. A case is made for greater empirical specification of the real extent of children's non-school-sanctioned communicative competence. The case disrupts…

The vitality of most Indigenous languages in North America, like minority languages in many parts of the world, is at risk due to the pressures of majority languages and cultures. The transmission of Indigenous languages through school-based programs is a wide-spread approach to maintaining and revitalizing threatened languages in Canada and the…

The literature on language diversity, linguistic human rights, and language renewal is reviewed, and Web sites dedicated to Aboriginal languages are examined. The Internet provides a resource center where grammars, lexicons, fonts, and other resources can be developed; a means of learning languages; and a medium for communicating in Aboriginal…