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"Language Maintenance"
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Policy and planning for endangered languages
\"Language policy issues are imbued with a powerful symbolism that is often linked to questions of identity, with the suppression or failure to recognise and support a given endangered variety representing a refusal to grant a 'voice' to the corresponding ethno-cultural community. This wide-ranging volume, which explores linguistic scenarios from across five continents, seeks to ignite the debate as to how and whether the interface between people, politics and language can affect the fortunes of endangered varieties. With chapters written by academics working in the field of language endangerment and members of indigenous communities on the frontline of language support and maintenance, Policy and Planning for Endangered Languages is essential reading for researchers and students of language death, sociolinguistics and applied linguistics, as well as community members involved in native language maintenance\"-- Provided by publisher.
Book
Enacting and Envisioning Decolonial Forces while Sustaining Indigenous Language
Through the presentation of visual and textual insights, this
book chronicles the experiences of Quechuan bilingual college
students, who strive to maintain their ethnolinguistic identity
while succeeding in Spanish-centric curricula. The book merges
decolonial theory and participatory action research in pursuit of
mobilizing Indigenous languages such as Quechua and depicts the
ways in which these Andean college students deal with limited
opportunities for Quechua-Spanish bilingual practices. It provides
an overview of their collective efforts to mobilize Quechua in
higher education, efforts which will help all who read it
understand the maintenance of the Quechua language beginning at the
grassroots level. The author advocates for engaging language
researchers in critical collective forces at the core of conditions
which promote Quechua in higher education, a collective effort
which must reflect decolonial, non-Eurocentric, non-fundamentalist
Indigenous concepts in combination with action-oriented cultural
wealth for the benefit of minoritized languages and peoples.
eBook
The last speakers : the quest to save the world's most endangered languages
Part travelogue and part scientist's notebook, The Last Speakers is the poignant chronicle of author K. David Harrison's expeditions around the world to meet with last speakers of vanishing languages. The speakers' eloquent reflections and candid photographs reveal little-known lifeways as well as revitalization efforts to teach disappearing languages to younger generations. Thought-provoking and engaging, this unique book illuminates the global language-extinction crisis through photos, graphics, interviews, traditional wisdom never before translated into English, and first-person essays that thrillingly convey the adventure of science and exploration. - Publisher.
Book
Language decline and death in Africa : causes, consequences and challenges
The aim of this book is to inform both scholars and the public about the nature and extent of the problem of language decline and death in Africa. It resourcefully traces the main causes and circumstances of language endangerment, the processes and extent of language shift and death, and the consequences of language loss to the continent's rich linguistic and cultural heritage. The book outlines some of the challenges that have emerged out of the situation.
eBook
Issues in Bilingualism and Heritage Language Maintenance: Perspectives of Minority-Language Mothers of Children With Autism Spectrum Disorders
Purpose: The author investigated the language practices of 10 bilingual, Chinese/English-speaking, immigrant mothers with their children with autism spectrum disorders. The aim was to understand (a) the nature of the language practices, (b) their constraints, and (c) their impact. Method: The author employed in-depth phenomenological interviews with thematic and narrative analyses to yield themes. Results: Interviewees reported that they adopted language practices perceived to be advantageous to intervention access and wellness. They valued Chinese language but did not pursue its use if it was believed to hinder the children's overall development of English acquisition. All of the mothers believed that bilingualism made learning more challenging. Many believed that it caused confusion or exacerbated disabilities. These deficit views of bilingualism were commonly reinforced by professionals. All of the mothers were motivated to help their children learn English but had no assistance to do so. Practices were sustainable only when they were aligned with families' preferred communication patterns. Conclusions: There is an urgent need for practitioners to be better informed about issues related to intergenerational language practices in minority-language families. Language use between parents and children is a complex matter that is unique to each family. Parents need to be supported to make language use decisions that are self-enhancing and congruent with their families' needs. (Contains 1 table and 2 footnotes.)
Journal Article
Household perspectives on minority language maintenance and loss : language in the small spaces
\"This book examines minority language maintenance and loss in Spanish-speaking families in communities in the US with a low ethnolinguistic vitality for Spanish. It offers an account of the gendered nature of linguistic transmission and compares the self-perceptions, motivations and attitudes of members of two generations in the same household\"-- Provided by publisher.
Book
Bilingualism as Conceptualized and Bilingualism as Lived: A Critical Examination of the Monolingual Socialization of a Child with Autism in a Bilingual Family
This is an ethnographic and discourse analytic case study of a bilingual, minority-language family of a six-year-old child with autism whose family members were committed to speaking English with him. Drawing on
family language policy
, the study examines the tensions between the family members’ stated beliefs, management efforts, and their actual practices around language use with their child. The findings show that many assumptions held by family members about language use and bilingualism were inconsistent with their everyday language practices. A practice and discourse-analytic approach to bilingualism offers a theoretical and methodological lens through which to investigate these discrepancies and to recast the interactional achievements between the child and his parents as situated bilingual practices.
Journal Article
Language city : the fight to preserve endangered mother tongues in New York
\"From the co-director of the Endangered Language Alliance, a captivating portrait of contemporary New York City through six speakers of little-known and overlooked languages, diving into the incredible history of the most linguistically diverse place ever to have existed on the planet. Half of all 7,000-plus human languages may disappear over the next century and-because many have never been recorded-when they're gone, it will be forever. Ross Perlin, a linguist and co-director of the Manhattan-based non-profit Endangered Language Alliance, is racing against time to map little-known languages across the most linguistically diverse city in history: contemporary New York. In Language City, Perlin recounts the unique history of immigration that shaped the city, and follows six remarkable yet ordinary speakers of endangered languages deep into their communities to learn how they are maintaining and reviving their languages against overwhelming odds. Perlin also dives deep into their languages, taking us on a fascinating tour of unusual grammars, rare sounds, and powerful cultural histories from all around the world. Seke is spoken by 700 people from five ancestral villages in Nepal, a hundred of whom have lived in a single Brooklyn apartment building. N'ko is a radical new West African writing system now going global in Harlem and the Bronx. After centuries of colonization and displacement, Lenape, the city's original Indigenous language and the source of the name Manhattan (\"the place where we get bows\"), has just one fluent native speaker, bolstered by a small band of revivalists. Also profiled in the book are speakers of the Indigenous Mexican language Nahuatl, the Central Asian minority language Wakhi, and the former lingua franca of the Lower East Side, Yiddish. A century after the anti-immigration Johnson-Reed Act closed America's doors for decades and on the 400th anniversary of New York's colonial founding, Perlin raises the alarm about growing political threats and the onslaught of \"killer languages\" like English and Spanish. Both remarkable social history and testament to the importance of linguistic diversity, Language City is a joyful and illuminating exploration of a city and the world that made it\"-- Provided by publisher.
Book
The Dynamics of Russian Language Maintenance in the U.S.-Based Russophone Diaspora: Conflicted Heritage, Resilience, and Persistence
This study examines intergenerational transmission of Russian within the U.S. Russophone diaspora in the wake of Russia’s 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine. It addresses: (1) parents’ motivations and practices surrounding intergenerational language transmission; and (2) challenges faced by Russian-speaking families in today’s shifting sociopolitical landscape. The study draws on semi-structured Zoom interviews with 16 Russian-speaking parents in the United States, each raising children aged 3–15 and representing four different immigration periods, from the early 1990s to 2022, following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Findings reveal that heritage language maintenance is shaped not only by linguistic choices, but also by political and ethical considerations. While all parents continue to view Russian as a source of identity, cultural capital, and familial cohesion, many also actively disassociate the language from its sociopolitical ties to the aggressor state. Shared aspirations for bilingualism are tempered by internal and external pressures, including children’s growing agency, family dynamics, challenges of immigrant life, and war-driven fractures within the diaspora. This study contributes to research on heritage language maintenance and family language policies by exploring how global geopolitical events are negotiated through intimate, everyday language practices in immigrant households.
Journal Article