Language Reclamation Research Articles

Discourses of solidarity and resistance in alternative linguistics spaces: Galician improvised poetry as linguistic collective action

AbstractThis article focuses on alternative ways of understanding language in the context of minority language advocacy through an examination of the Galician tradition of singing‐in‐verse, known as regueifa. It proposes the notion of “linguistic collective action” to refer to the battery of resistance and solidarity strategies that lead to social transformation, implemented in grassroots movements linked to language struggles that not only go beyond the binary tropes of “pride” and “profit”, but also transcend traditional ideas of how language revitalization should be carried out. To tap into the dynamics of this social movement, we draw on a multi‐sited ethnography of the interconnected spaces in which urban‐based Galician speakers engage in collective action through the practice of regueifa. We examine how progressive values (e.g.: LGBTQ+ advocacy, feminism, and anti‐neoliberalism) are intertwined with the use of minoritized language reclamation, acting as a trigger for social transformation.

Constructing Ethnolinguistic Identities: A Critical Examination of Language and Power Dynamics in Diasporic Communities

This research investigates the complex interplay between language and power in the formation of ethnolinguistic identities within diasporic communities. As globalization accelerates, diasporic groups navigate a complex landscape where traditional linguistic practices intersect with new socio-political realities. This study aims to critically examine how language functions as a tool for negotiating identity and power within these communities, emphasizing the role of language ideologies and practices in shaping social dynamics. The primary objectives are to explore how language serves as a medium for the construction and negotiation of ethnolinguistic identities and to understand the influence of power relations on these processes. Specifically, the study seeks to identify the ways in which language practices reflect and challenge power structures within diasporic contexts and how these practices contribute to the formation of collective and individual identities. This research is a multi-sited ethnographic approach,and integrates discourse analysis across several diasporic communities. Findings reveal that language serves as a strategic resource for negotiating social status and ethnic belonging. Diasporic individuals employ code-switching, language reclamation, and multilingualism to assert identity and resist assimilation pressures. The study highlights how language ideologies both reinforce and contest existing power structures, demonstrating the dynamic role of language in shaping ethnolinguistic identities amidst shifting socio-political landscapes.

Community Discourses of Language Reclamation through Irish Medium Youth Work

ABSTRACT This article presents community discourses of Irish medium youth work (IMYW) in the North of Ireland as a component of a wider community goal of language reclamation. This is a secondary data analysis of interviews conducted by the author which places the findings within the historical context of colonisation and present-day language reclamation efforts. Gaeilge has been the subject of language reclamation efforts in the North of Ireland since the late 1960s with this form of language activism including social and economic activism. This analysis connects the material and cultural disadvantages that young Irish speakers face with a youth work methodology that is grounded in language and community rights as well as social justice. The findings illustrate that despite governmental commitments to Gaeilge, discriminatory views and decisions remain which in turn inspire this growing community in their project of language reclamation in which young people are at the centre.

Language reclamation in the family

Oppressive policies have led to a devaluation of Indigenous cultural and linguistic practices, which in turn have contributed to disruption of language transmission in the family. In this article, I take a longitudinal perspective by first discussing the role of the family in language shift and then exploring how people who have learned Sámi (an Indigenous language in Norway) in the educational system decide to speak Sámi when they become parents. I draw on data from sociolinguistic interviews, fieldwork, interviews in the media, blogs and my own background from a coastal Sámi family. The goal of this article is to explore the motivations and experiences of Sámi parents who decide to speak Sámi with their children and to discuss how some of the challenges faced by these parents may be the result of silences brought about by our colonial past, in this case the domination of Norwegian. Language reclamation is a form of decolonization because agency resides with the speakers and because this may contribute to disrupting colonial heritage and heal hurts from the past.

Revitalization at a Distance: Engaging Digital Archives for Language Reclamation

Abstract: In this paper, we describe collaborative work in progress on reclamation projects between Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities in Australia and the Chirila project. These projects were created in response to a need for language work which was responsive to community needs in different regions of Australia, but where the work could also be done remotely: that is, aiding reclamation work without taking attention away from local collaborations within families or schools. Such work does not in any way replace language work on the ground, and community-internal language work, but it can augment existing projects and continue connections while we cannot meet in person, as well as provide undergraduate linguistics students with in depth training in language documentation. In this article, we discuss how the bootcamps work and the types of materials that are particularly suited to this style of collaboration. We describe the types of materials that are produced and how these can feed into community language programs. We describe how the bootcamps use collaboration "at a distance" to train university students in ethics and community partnerships, and comment on how the projects have worked from both the community and university perspective. We stress, however, that this is only one possible model of remote collaboration.

Refusing “Endangered Languages” Narratives

Abstract Indigenous language endangerment is a global crisis, and in response, a normative “endangered languages” narrative about the crisis has developed. Though seemingly beneficent and accurate in many of its points, this narrative can also cause harm to language communities by furthering colonial logics that repurpose Indigenous languages as objects for wider society's consumption, while deemphasizing or even outright omitting the extreme injustices that beget language endangerment. The objective of this essay is to promote social justice praxis first by detailing how language shift results from major injustices, and then by offering possible interventions that are accountable to the communities whose languages are endangered. Drawing from my experiences as a member of a Native American community whose language was wrongly labeled “extinct” within this narrative, I begin with an overview of how language endangerment is described to general audiences in the United States and critique the way it is framed and shared. From there, I shift to an alternative that draws from Indigenous ways of knowing to promote social justice through language reclamation.

“What is language for us?”: Community-based Anishinaabemowin language planning using TEK-nology

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, such as in Canadian residential schools. To this day, ideologies and policies still privilege dominant classes and languages at the expense of Indigenous and minoritized groups and languages. To prevent further erasure and marginalization, work is required at multiple levels. There is growing consensus that top-down, government-led LPP must occur alongside community-led, bottom-up LPP. One shared and common goal for Indigenous language reclamation and revitalization initiatives across the globe is to promote intergenerational language transmission in the home, the community, and beyond. The affordances of digital and online technologies are also being explored to foster more self-determined virtual communities of practice. Following an Indigenous research paradigm, this paper introduces the TEK-nology (Traditional Ecological Knowledge [TEK] and technology) pilot project in the Canadian context. TEK-nology is an immersive, community-led, and technology-enabled Indigenous language acquisition approach to support Anishinaabemowin language revitalization and reclamation. The TEK-nology pilot project is an example of bottom-up, community-based language planning (CBLP) where Indigenous community members are the language-related decision-makers. This paper demonstrates that Indigenous-led, praxis-driven CBLP, using TEK-nology, can support Anishinaabemowin language revitalization and reclamation and more equitable, self-determined LPP. The CBLP TEK-nology project has implications for status and acquisition language planning; culturally responsive LPP methodologies; and federal, provincial, territorial, and family language policy.

From the Queen's English to reclaiming indigenous languages: An African poetic perspective

From the Queen's English to reclaiming indigenous languages: An African poetic perspective

“We Most Certainly Do Have a Language”

AbstractThis article proposes that languages should be embraced by the field of extinction studies while at the same time being mindful of the imbrication of colonialism in both the assignation and terminology of extinction and attempts to revive or reclaim endangered and extinct languages. It thus argues for a decolonizing approach to discourses of both language extinction and reclamation. The article starts by contextualizing the complementary extinction crises facing both species and languages. It then moves on to explore the links between colonialism and the extinction crisis for languages as well as the colonialist underpinnings of many attempts to document and revive endangered and extinct languages. The article then looks to a particularly unique case of decolonial language reclamation, focusing on the work of members of the Kariri-Xocó Indigenous community in present-day Northeast Brazil. It concludes that, by reclaiming their language in a way that is both agentive and coconstructed, the Kariri-Xocó bring together language, culture, and spirituality as tools for resistance.

Building a community‐centered archive for Cherokee language description, documentation, and reclamation

AbstractIn light of recent calls for decolonial approaches to Indigenous language learning, documentation, and reclamation, we describe the creation of a digital archive initiated and sustained by community collaboration. We work with members of the three federally recognized Cherokee tribes to translate and analyze Cherokee texts. Cherokee speakers participate in the narrative commentary around these previously dormant texts. We find three ways in which a digital archive can be leveraged for language reclamation, description, and documentation, while being initiated and sustained by community collaboration: (a) by developing collaborative translation environments across communities of users, (b) by developing software engineering methods to build reliable infrastructure for the archive, and (c) by creating collaborative workflows that center community practices and design insights. Translating historically dormant texts for this archive creates a use‐inspired language act central to language description, documentation, and reclamation. The collective translation process of building this digital archive provides a sense of continuity that grounds language learning in use‐inspired practices. Going forward, we will continue to center speaker and community‐use‐inspired language practice as we expand the archive to support more types of community contributions and other languages.

Authorities at play in Indigenous language reclamation: tensions and possibilities in the Yucatan Peninsula

Abstract Language revitalization efforts have been critiqued for creating and reproducing linguistic, epistemological, and pedagogical hierarchies that might run counter to a community’s needs and interests. Drawing on a seven-year ethnographic and collaborative research with the Maya cultural promoters of the Caste War Museum in Tihosuco, Mexico, we describe the dynamics of our Maya language reclamation partnership focusing on the creation of bilingual comic books and summer workshops for children. These experiences show a slow but steady language reclamation approach based on the concern for younger generations to feel comfortable to claim their right to speak and learn Maya and on their fondness for Maya language and culture. We argue that the construction, negotiation, and assertion of linguistic and pedagogical authority among all participating actors is central to reclamation projects, and that these processes are impacted by outsider researchers-collaborators in ways that can support but also potentially harm these language efforts. This paper sheds light on the various tensions lived in long-term language reclamation projects, recognizing the need for outsider researchers to turn our reflexive gaze inwards and consider how we can bring to the fore practices we can celebrate as well as address and transform those that cause discomfort and uncertainty.

From Silence to Silencing? Contradictions and Tensions in Language Revitalization

Abstract Language revitalization is imbued with tensions, and while it often is emancipatory, reclaiming a language can be a painful, silencing experience. Processes of colonization have led to epistemological absences (Santos 2012), which may be conceptualized as manifestations of silence. Understanding how and why silences come about and linger today is important for overcoming challenges those engaging in language reclamation may face. Therefore, paying attention to silences and emotional aspects of revitalization processes is important. In order to explore the inherent tensions of revitalization processes, I investigate lived experiences of language reclamation, focusing on emotions and silences in revitalization processes of Sámi in Northern Norway. European nation states colonized not only in the global South, but also ‘at home’. Thus, the South, in the form of silenced and marginalized populations, also exists in the global North (Santos 2012). Drawing on perspectives from Southern Theory and Gordon’s (2017) sociology of haunting, I investigate silences, emotions and tensions in language reclamation to shed light on how our colonial past may re-emerge in processes of language reclamation.

“Words That Open Your Heart”—Overcoming Social Barriers to Heritage Language Reclamation in Ishigaki City

Ishigaki Yaeyaman, a heavily minoritized Southern Ryukyuan language, is not a language of commerce, education, media, or government validated by the socioeconomic center. Nevertheless, it holds a certain value for a group of people in Ishigaki City that is intangible and deeply personal. In keeping with the goal of this special issue—to step out of the established dichotomies that impede the vision and practice of Ryukyuan language learning—this work sheds light on the ideologies and practices of new speakers of Ishigaki Yaeyaman, who traverse a ‘third space’ in their use of the language between public-and-private, polite-and-rude, spoken-and-written, and Japanese-and-Ryukyuan. It builds on the author’s findings, including field observations made during doctoral research at University of the Ryukyus. A participatory action research methodology is employed, drawing upon qualitative data from semi-structured personal interviews and the in-person observation of Master–Apprentice language learning sessions within a local grassroots initiative begun in December 2019. The analysis suggests a need to break away from the dichotomies dictating the environment and situations in which new speakers may interact with traditional speakers and among themselves. This is recommended to take the form of Master–Apprentice training in a context that encourages the transformation of language attitudes and awareness, creating a ‘safe space’ that is dialogic, collaborative, and transdisciplinary.

Engaging Indigenous Language Learning Through Relational Accountability: A Commentary on “Undoing Competence: Coloniality, Homogeneity, and the Overrepresentation of Whiteness in Applied Linguistics”

Engaging Indigenous Language Learning Through Relational Accountability: A Commentary on “Undoing Competence: Coloniality, Homogeneity, and the Overrepresentation of Whiteness in Applied Linguistics”

Lingua Nullius: Indigenous Language Learning and Revitalization as Sites for Settler-Colonial Violence

This article examines the role that Indigenous language learning and use can play in the establishment of false or spurious claims to Indigeneity. These acts of “race shifting” are situated within the political discourse of “Truth and Reconciliation” and serve to enable settlers to situate themselves in positions where, both materially and symbolically, they rely on their claims to “Indigeneity” to take up resources dedicated to Indigenous people. Indigenous language use and language revitalization programs provide tools that can enable these performances of Indigenous identity to become more widely accepted among predominantly settler audiences. We argue that increasing consciousness of the inherently political nature of Indigenous language work – often framed as a move toward language reclamation – must be pushed even further, to consider the possibility that some users are not reclaiming but in fact claiming. These acts of claiming the language function in much the same way as claims to land have within settler colonialism – to dispossess Indigenous people and to disrupt Indigenous sovereignty.

Language reclamation and ethnic revival in P’urhépecha territory

In P’urhépecha territory, Central Michoacán, Mexico, Indigenous revival processes have characterized in recent years by a resurgence of language reclamation projects that revendicate ethnic identity in Indigenous communities. In a country that has historically highlighted language as a marker of indigeneity, how do ethnic revindication processes tied to language emerge in communities where the Indigenous language has been entirely displaced by Spanish? This article discusses the case of Huecorio, a community of P’urhépecha descent located in Lake Pátzcuaro, where community members have engaged in language revival practices in the past 5 years. Grounded in Indigenous-based participatory research, we center our discussion on the use of the P’urhepecha language in the interrelated spheres that make up the community to demonstrate how Indigenous communities that no longer speak their heritage language are contributing to the reconfiguration of their ethno-cultural identity through language reclamation practices.

Indigenous language revitalization using TEK-nology: how can traditional ecological knowledge (TEK) and technology support intergenerational language transmission?

ABSTRACT Indigenous communities worldwide face threats to their linguistic and epistemic heritage with the unabated spread of dominant colonial languages and global monocultures, such as English and the neoliberal, imperialistic worldview. There is considerable strain on the relatively few Elders and speakers of Indigenous languages to maintain cultures and languages decimated by centuries of colonialism. One shared and common goal for Indigenous language revitalization initiatives is to reinvigorate intergenerational language transmission in the home, the community and beyond in as many ways as possible. How can technology support this nuanced process and existing initiatives? Following an Indigenous research paradigm, this article explores an immersive, community-led Indigenous language acquisition approach – TEK-nology (traditional ecological knowledge [TEK] and technology) – to support Anishinaabemowin language revitalization and reclamation (ALRR) in the Canadian context. The TEK-nology pilot project identifies (1) the impacts of centring Indigenous worldviews in technology, language learning and teaching; (2) how we can develop and co-create technology-enabled, culturally and environmentally responsive pedagogies and (3) the important implications of decolonizing language education for Indigenous and majority languages. The TEK-nology pilot project demonstrates how community-led, relational technology and immersive Indigenous language acquisition can support ALRR and foster more equitable multicultural and multilingual education practice and policy.

Heritage languages and language as heritage: the language of heritage in Canada and beyond

ABSTRACT This article draws on recent discourses surrounding intangible cultural heritage (ICH) and its relationship to language preservation, practice, and revitalisation to propose that language be considered a form and practice of heritage in and of itself, not merely a vehicle for the conveyance of ICH. As such, language can serve as a bridge between the often-parallel tracks of tangible and intangible heritage, helping arrive at an understanding of heritage that is broader, more nuanced, and more inclusive. Until now, most scholars have resisted fully characterising language as heritage, viewing ‘heritagisation’ as a threat to the vitality of language rather than embracing language as a boon to the aliveness of heritage. In support of our argument, we draw on examples from Latin America, Asia, and in particular Canada to highlight specific historical and political discourses that determine whose language counts as heritage and whose heritage counts more generally. While certain communities may derive some benefit from an acknowledgement of their language as a form of heritage in service of a language reclamation agenda, the field of heritage will benefit greatly from inviting the vitality of language to enrich its many facets – discourse, practice, materiality, and the interplay among these three.

Relationality and Ojibwemowin† in Forest Walks: Learning from Multimodal Interaction about Land and Language

Indigenous language reclamation efforts are pushing academic ideas of what language is, in order to be accountable to Indigenous epistemologies. Simultaneously, as our Indigenous languages grow, we (academics) are pushed to grow beyond the boundaries of disciplines. Categories of “language” and “land” have been segregated by this colonial structure. In this study, as we bring them together, we seek to describe what the ontology in play looks like. We argue that as reclamation efforts successfully grow more young speakers, we are able to push against colonial constructs of learning when we witness learning in the context of movement, land, and intergenerational interactions. In this article, we closely examine episodes from three walks taken from a broader corpus of walks (14), to describe how one Elder walking with groups of two children constructed knowledge and joint meaning-making in the Ojibwe language while walking on Ojibwe lands. We take seriously the idea that there is an Indigenous epistemology at work in these cultural ecologies, one that sees humans as a part of the natural world, at play on the walks. Here we describe specifically what this looks like in the moment-to-moment interactions, and how we read these constellations of cultural practices as an apprenticeship into sustaining relationships with land.

Who’s Laughing Now?: Feminist Tactics in Social Media

Who’s Laughing Now?: Feminist Tactics in Social Media