This article investigates the strategies that were adopted for the revitalisation of Tonga, an endangered, marginalised language in Zimbabwe. Using Yamamoto's (1998) nine-factor model for language ...revitalisation, the article analyses the strategies adopted by the marginalised Tonga ethnic group in Zimbabwe to revitalise their language. It argues that the Tonga revitalisation initiative was a success as it adopted a holistic approach which identified and addressed the critical and complex sociological, political, economic, and cultural factors that caused language shift in the first place. These strategies focused primarily on raising awareness through promoting educational programmes about the endangered language and culture and developing a strong sense of ethnic identity within the community. The creation of a bilingual/bicultural school programme, the training of native speakers as teachers, and the amendment of the national language legislation were considered vital to the success of the initiative.
This article explores research and practice on the holistic benefits of education for language revitalisation and reclamation - ELR
2
- efforts that link home, school, and community in mutually ...supportive language work informed by a critical understanding of coloniality as the root cause of language endangerment. The article examines ELR
2
in and out of school, asking what can be learned from these projects in light of their combined aims of language revitalisation and education parity and the broader goals of promoting cultural knowledge, identity, and continuance; strengthening intergenerational family and community ties; and anticolonialism, sovereignty, and self-determination. In pursuing these goals, ELR
2
also recovers Indigenous practices of mutuality, relationality, respect, and equality - supportive factors in individual and collective wellbeing. As a pathway to these holistic outcomes, ELR
2
holds the promise of sustainable diversity and social justice for all.
A key feature of the confluence of modern nation-state formation and colonization has been the marginalization and denigration of minoritized language varieties, particularly Indigenous languages, ...over time. Indigenous languages have been actively proscribed in public language domains, such as education, leading to their inevitable shift and loss, in settler-colonial contexts worldwide. This process of linguistic hierarchization has long been recognized in the sociology of language and the sociology of nationalism but the overt and covert linguistic racism attendant upon it had remained relatively under-explored. Recent discussions within sociolinguistics and linguistic anthropology, however, have addressed this lacuna, particularly through the development of raciolinguistics as a theoretical framework. Linguistic racism, a form of cultural racism, uses discursive constructions of language use and related linguistic hierarchies as a proxy for the racialized discrimination and subordination of Indigenous peoples and other minoritized ethnic groups. Here, I explore discourses of linguistic racism by Pākehā (White) New Zealanders in Aotearoa New Zealand toward te reo Māori, the Indigenous Māori language, in everyday discourses and the media. I focus particularly on the public contestation of the increasing normalization of te reo Māori in contemporary New Zealand society, the result of the successes of the last 40 years of Māori language revitalization, via both overt and covert forms of linguistic racism toward te reo Māori. These discourses act in defense of English monolingualism, the direct linguistic legacy of New Zealand’s settler-colonial history, along with the privileges this history has provided for White, monolingual English-speaking New Zealanders. Interestingly, the racialized opposition to te reo Māori is most evident among older, White New Zealanders. This suggests the potential for change among younger New Zealanders and New Zealand’s increasingly diverse migrant population, both of whom appear more open to the ongoing development of societal bilingualism in English and te reo Māori.
In this introduction, we offer an overview of language revitalisation (LR) as a transdisciplinary field and its connections to related disciplines. We outline its evolution from its origins, current ...directions, and possible future moves. In the last section, we introduce each of the articles in the special issue as they relate to three current developments in the field of LR: the role of the researcher in LR, the causes of language endangerment, and the impact of globalisation.
This review considers the revitalization programme for Scottish Gaelic, which has gathered pace since the 1980s. The texts reviewed here document the process of language shift but especially focus on ...revitalization efforts undertaken in order to increase speaker numbers and also increase the contexts and usage of Gaelic.
About Mansi — in Mansi Bíró, B; Sipőcz, K
Linguistica Uralica,
2023, Letnik:
59, Številka:
4
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Odprti dostop
The aim of this paper is to show where and what can be read in Mansi about the current situation and use of the Mansi language. We investigate articles in the Mansi newspaper ÐÓ¯Ð¸Ð¼Ä ÑÑÌÑÐ¸Ð¿Ð¾Ñ ...LÅ«imÄ SÄripos which discuss the usage of the mother tongue, the situation of minority peoples and languages, the education in Mansi and in other minority languages, and the application of modern technologies in the preservation of the Mansi language. We analyse thematically related topics that characterize the articles of this newspaper. Finally, we also discuss whether some kind of sociolinguistic terminology related to the issue of language endangerment can be observed in these Mansi texts.
In this article we introduce the language practices of a group of Indigenous Maya students at an elementary school in northern California. We discuss how liminal experience in migration foregrounds ...an awareness of becoming and embodying multiple selves and of using multiple languages across the home, school, and community. Through an analysis of interview data from a three and a half-year ethnographic project at the school, we focus on two students’ strategies for learning and stewarding their Indigenous language. Their use and awareness of language offer examples of Indigenous resurgence and futurity as the young generation reclaims language in acts of transnational sovereignty. We argue that these students’ translanguaging practices represent their everyday actions as stewards of the language, and that in the process of learning their Indigenous language, these students enact forms of transnational sovereignty.
Authenticity is a key concept of language revitalisation; any attempt to restore the language practices of the past aims at achieving the authentic language. Since, as much of recent sociolinguistic ...scholarship has argued, this goal can only be met through metapragmatic activities, the emically defined success of language revitalisation also depends on such processes. The introduction of new linguistic practices is therefore inevitably linked to a value‐centred and preferably consensual comparison with older practices. In our study, we argue that during the reanalysis of this comparison, linguistic practices subject to revitalisation are interpreted as independent semiotic registers, i.e. enregistered. These metapragmatic activities are illustrated with the example of the Moldavian Hungarian (Csángó) language spoken in North‐East Romania, by analysing a new literacy practice created during language revitalisation. This practice results in travelling texts, such as books and letters to the supporters of the revitalising programme from Hungary. These are designed to fulfil the expectations of the sponsors regarding the ‘authentic’ Csángó dialect, with a linguistic production that is enregistered both as a locally unique language and as a dialect of Hungarian. The analysis shows that the quest for authenticity can be discursively achieved even if the success of restoring former language practices is debatable.
A nyelvi revitalizációban központi jelentőségű az autenticitás koncepciója; a múlt nyelvi gyakorlatainak újrateremtésére tett kísérletek célja az autentikus nyelv elérése. Mivel ennek a célnak – mint az újabb szociolingvisztikai kutatások eredményei mutatják – csak metapragmatikai tevékenységek által lehet megfelelni, a nyelvi revitalizáció émikusan meghatározott sikere is e tevékenységek függvénye. Így az új nyelvi gyakorlatok bevezetése elkerülhetetlenül összekapcsolódik a régebbiekkel való értékközpontú és jobb esetben konszenzuális összehasonlítással. Tanulmányunkban arra mutatunk rá, hogy az összehasonlítás újraértelmezése során a revitalizálandó nyelvi gyakorlatokat önálló szemiotikai regisztereknek tekintik, azaz regisztrálják. Ezeket a metapragmatikai folyamatokat az Északkelet‐Romániában beszélt moldvai magyar (csángó) példáján szemléltetjük egy olyan új írásbeli gyakorlatot elemezve, amely a nyelvi revitalizáció során alakult ki. Ez a gyakorlat utazó szövegeket – egy kötetet és a revitalizációs program magyarországi támogatói számára írt leveleket – eredményez, amelyeket úgy hoztak létre, hogy megfeleljenek a támogatók elvárásainak az „autentikus” csángó nyelvjárással szemben. Ennek érdekében a nyelvi produkció egyszerre regisztrálódik lokálisan egyedi nyelvként és a magyar nyelv dialektusaként. Elemzésünk kimutatja, hogy az autenticitás keresése diszkurzív módon úgy járhat sikerrel, hogy közben a korábbi nyelvi gyakorlatok helyreállításának eredményessége vitatható. Hungarian
