In this article, the authors explore the personal, familial, and academic stakes of Native language loss for youth, drawing on narrative data from the Native Language Shift and Retention Project, a five year (2001-06), federally funded study of the nature and impacts of Native language shift and retention on American Indian students' language…

In many respects, the state of minority language reflects the dynamics of the society at large. At this time, many minority languages are threatened by modernization and urbanization, although others find support in new regional autonomy and movements toward cultural preservation. The 17 chapters of this collection describe the status of a number…

At the University of Miami, the Bilingual Study Group has been evaluating linguistic and academic performance of children from a broad spectrum of socioeconomic status who appear to be well-matched across bilingual and monolingual groups. Because the studies vary in the degree of exposure to English and Spanish among bilingual subjects who are…

This edited volume provides an overview of issues surrounding language loss from sociological, economic, and linguistic perspectives. Four parts cover general issues in language loss; language-community responses, including native language instruction in school, community, and home; the value of language diversity and what is lost when a language…

The volume is one of a series of six listing language-related legislation around the world. It presents the texts, in French, of laws of the central Belgian government and of the Flemish-speaking, French-speaking, and German-speaking communities within Belgium. The laws concern official languages, language maintenance, and language use in…

The volume is one of a series of six listing language-related legislation around the world. It contains the texts, in French, of laws of Andorra, Spain's central government, Spanish regions (Balearic Islands, Basque Provinces, Catalonia, and Valencia). Italy, and Italy's regions. The laws concern official languages, regional languages, language…

Years of nursery education are crucial in the language development process of the child. In Nigeria, a nation with over 400 languages, naming a national language for educational and cultural development that foster unity and identity, becomes a sensitive issue. It is argued that government encouragement of private efforts in the provision of…

This book contains selected papers presented at a working conference, "Cultural Diversity: Implications for Education", held in 1991. The issues explored cover such areas as cultural therapy as a means to enhance student-teacher relationships; the differences in attitude and motivation of immigrant and domestic minority youth; the…

An assortment of materials that may be useful in addressing issues of language, culture, and power in the English-as-a-Second-Language (ESL) classroom is presented. Specific focus is placed on the movement to make English the official language of the United States. Contents include materials developed by teachers and adapted from commercial texts,…

A set of procedures for evaluating language planning and policy is proposed. The method, developed to assess language policy implementation in Morocco since independence in 1956, is suggested as a diagnostic device to assist specialists in evaluating previously implemented plans and those in progress. It isolates the linguistic and extralinguistic…

A study investigated the retention and loss of school-learned foreign language skills. Subjects were 150 students of Dutch secondary schools with 4 or 6 years of French language instruction and 0, 2, and 4 years of disuse. Nine tests of general language proficiency, listening and reading comprehension, phonology, vocabulary, and grammar were…

One in a series of materials developed to revive the Hupa language and renew knowledge of Hupa culture, this lexicon includes vocabulary, phrases, and stories in Hupa and English. The major portion of the document is an English-Hupa lexicon of basic vocabulary listed alphabetically by the English words. In addition to the Hupa and English terms,…

A vocabulary list provides commonly-used words in the language of the Karuk Indians of northwestern California. Illustrations, handlettered Karuk terms, and English equivalents comprise entries for each of the 156 terms; space is also provided to practice writing each Karuk word. Topics covered include numbers, parts of the body, animals and…

The member countries of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development generally provide monolingual basic education, and the imposition of a common language remains one of the political and economic functions of the schools. Multilingual or bilingual education is marginal. The individual states' language policies reflect interests in…

This paper examines the relevant literature on American Indian dialectal variations of English and efforts to maintain American Indian languages through bilingual education programs. The preservation of the ancestral Lakota dialect of the Siouan language is discussed in terms of the implications for educational program planning. It is concluded…