The risk of ‘taking urgent steps’: linguistic diversity and the International Decade of Indigenous Languages

Abstract

ABSTRACT In this introduction, we offer an overview of the topics of language risk, language choice, and language rights in relation to linguistic diversity. We situate this discussion around the recent International Year of Indigenous Languages (2019) and the upcoming International Decade of Indigenous Languages (2022–2032). In particular, we consider how the decade’s desire to ‘take urgent steps’ to prevent language loss, might take place on the ground, in Indigenous lands. Finally, we suggest that the papers in this issue, which are focused on language resilience and an anthropological view of language, might be case studies for how an approach to language risk, language choice, and language rights might be enacted during the International Decade of Indigenous Languages.