Stories and storytelling about language initiatives are an important political device in constructing and perpetuating language status planning and policies. However, little attention has been given to meta-discursive practices by institutions about Indigenous language revitalization in the U.S. as well as how music can play important roles in…

Indigenous people of the world fight to maintain our lifeways, culture, and more specifically our languages. Speakers have endured waves of violence and persecution and in the face of that still fought to preserve and bring back languages. Language loss has been observed by communities and linguists and each figures out ways to document and…

Federal law defines eligibility for English learner (EL) classification differently for Indigenous students compared with non-Indigenous students. To be EL-eligible, non-Indigenous students are required to have a non-English primary language. Indigenous students, by contrast, can be English-dominant or English monolingual. A critical question,…

This article uses cognitive measures previously developed within linguistic relativity research to explore the thinking patterns of Yucatec Maya-Spanish bilingual children in the Yucatan peninsula. These measures were designed to detect cognitive patterns associated with specific language patterns. Here, these measures are used to test whether 12…

There is a significant diaspora of Mixtec people residing along California's Central Coast, mostly working in the agricultural sector. The new realities in the diaspora have brought Mixtec varieties in contact in new contexts where they co-exist with other Mexican Indigenous languages, as well as with Spanish and English. We urgently need more…

Chile is a well-known country for its socio-economic and racial inequalities, especially in education. Despite it being prolific, research on educational inequalities has neglected the question about the persistence of colonial dynamics in the educational sphere and how the experience of colonisation has shaped contemporary social relations.…

Increasingly, speakers of minoritized languages around the world are becoming uprooted due to economic pressures, political forces, and environmental destabilization. As communities leave their traditional homelands, they often experience accelerated language shift. Although youth are in a critical position to further transmit their languages to…

Coloniality in education and language policies continues to impact Indigenous communities in implicit and complex ways. In this article, we describe the case of Colombia where, like in many other countries in the Global South, educational policy messages are contradictory. While ethno-education policies purport to sustain Indigenous languages and…

For decades, the O'odham language has been in decline. But like many tribal nations, the Tohono O'odham are working to reclaim their language. Located on the campus of Tohono O'odham Community College (TOCC), the center was founded in 2020 and is for all O'odham, including those from other O'odham speaking nations. Creating opportunities where the…

Preserving the Navajo language, or "Diné bizaad," is of profound importance for all Indigenous people in the United States, as Navajo is one of the more widely spoken Native languages yet is still facing the early stages of endangerment. Currently, the Navajo Nation, like other tribes, lacks a significant presence of community-based…

This paper focuses on the development, planning, and implementation of Numu (Northern Paiute) language classes at the University of Nevada, Reno. The authors' engagement with the Numu classes as well as the description and analysis presented in this paper are guided by principles of decolonization, language reclamation, and community-based…

Cherokee is an endangered Indigenous language. Revitalization efforts often include offering Cherokee language instruction, but these efforts have been hampered by a lack of qualified teachers. An initial licensure program was launched in fall 2019 aimed at supporting Cherokee language renewal via the preparation of teachers. While a step forward,…

The Dena'ina language is a well-documented Northern Dene Alaska Native language in south-central Alaska. The Dena'ina language is on the brink of going to sleep. The Dena'ina community strongly desires for the Dena'ina language to once again thrive in the community. Language-use within the community is a contributing factor to the health of the…

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…

Working to learn a language both contributes to language revitalization and teaches learners about themselves, thus developing a sense of mental and spiritual well-being associated with learning the learners' ancestral language. In addition, on an institutional level, those who contribute to language revitalization and hold space for the language…