A story is told of how inner-city youth organizations use dramas that young people write, cast, and direct to enable them to retain their first language or dialect while gaining standard English and preparing for job entry. The story ends with implications for the language classroom. (seven references) (Author/LB)

The relationship between U.S. national policies on literacy, available literacy programs, and individual lives is examined. A discussion of the pressures to become literate in English is followed by an analysis of language use in immigrant families and the effect of native language loss. Recommendations regarding the plurality of literacies are…

Argues that in Europe over several centuries, the relationship between democracy and language policy in multilingual countries has been complex, noting that Catalan has thrived in democratic periods where devolution has advanced, and the causes of most problems facing Catalan are nonlinguistic. The paper examines language and democracy, language…

Reviews the literature to determine the importance of immersion in language restoration or preservation. Defines immersion and its goals, and discusses effects on students' English cognitive ability. Examines the success of Indian nations in retaining/restoring Native languages and concludes that, if nothing is done, additional Native languages…

Explores divergent Quichua language ideologies among an indigenous group of the Southern Ecuadorian Andes. Analysis of interviews with indigenous highlanders reveals the presence of two conflicting Quichua language ideologies. Provides insight into language attitudes in the face of language shift and how language ideologies are critical to the…

The educational policies and levels of language maintenance found in the linguistically diverse societies of Australia and The Philippines are compared. Respondents in the study were senior secondary school students and their parents who were selected from three non-Tagalog-speaking communities in the Philippines (Cebuano, Ilocano, and Waray).…

Provides information on the educational system in the Basque Country and insight into the Basque Country and Basque language and the reverse language shift efforts made to date. Suggests that the effects of bilingualism and immersion programs are beneficial in the Basque context. (Author/VWL)

Presents indigenous language revitalization resources, primarily organizations, web sites, and recent publications that are likely to be readily available on the Internet, in bookstores and university libraries, or by interlibrary loan. Includes listings of programs and organizations; videos; Internet indexes, sites, and discussion groups; books;…

Discusses migration patterns and language maintenance in Paraguay, where the majority of the population are speakers of Guarani, an indigenous South American language. Careful examination of Paraguayan census data reveals that Spanish-Guarani bilingualism is not nearly as widespread as claimed. (Author/VWL)

In January 1998, 12 francophone school boards were established in Ontario, up from 4 in 1989. This new level of autonomy brings with it the new political reality of accountability. Francophone school boards, in addition to educating students within provincial policies, are responsible for maintenance of French language and culture to ensure…

Derisive attitudes towards Spanish in the United States threaten its survival. Four issues vital to the preservation of Spanish in the United States are examined: the arbitrary nature of linguistic prejudice, the linguistic validity of all dialects, the overwhelming linguistic overlap between nonstandard and standard dialects of Spanish, and the…

Oralism, which teaches lip reading and speech instead of American Sign Language (ASL), was hostile to deaf culture in the early 1900s. Deaf resistance to oralism solidified the deaf community through support of deaf teachers; establishment of deaf newspapers, clubs, and churches; and production of sign-language films and dictionaries. (Contains 60…

This article examines issues regarding the organizational identities of tribal colleges. It provides views that despite being modeled on conventional colleges and universities, tribal colleges need to become more uniquely Native American institutions. A suggestion is explored that tribal colleges offer more courses of study involving tribal…

Nearly 40 years have passed since the publication of Rubin's renowned study on Paraguayan bilingualism. The present study compares the results of surveys conducted in the years 2000-2001 with data from Rubin's 1960-1961 investigation. The main objective of this study is to examine the linguistic changes that have occurred in four decades and the…

While decline and/or extinction threaten an ever-increasing number of languages, most of these are minority tongues that struggle for survival against dominant languages. The present paper reports the case of Belarusian, a national and co-official language, which the great majority of the population of Belarus considers as its mother tongue, but…