Rejecting the Marginalized Status of Minority Languages

Ari Sherris is Associate Professor of Bilingual Education, Texas A&M University-Kingsville, USA. His research interests include Indigenous language revitalization, documentation, ethnography, autoethnography and complex social semiotics. He is coeditor of Making Signs, Translanguaging Ethnographies (Multilingual Matters, 2018).Susan D. Penfield is Affiliate Faculty in the Department of Linguistics, University of Montana and University of Arizona, USA. Her research interests include Indigenous language policy and planning, revitalization, documentation and interdisciplinary research.

• Foreword: Gerald Roche           Chapter 1. Ari Sherris & Susan Penfield: Aspiring to Strength and Possibility for Indigenous, Tribal, and Minoritized Languages, Cultures, Bodies, and Lands: An IntroductionChapter 2. Colleen Alena O’Brien: The Challenges of Kamsá Language Revitalization in ColombiaChapter 3. Tania Ka‘ai: Okea Ururoatia [Fight Like a Shark]: The Regeneration of Native Māori Language Speakers in Aotearoa New ZealandChapter 4. Annika Pasanen: Becoming a New Speaker of Saami Language Through Intensive Adult EducationChapter 5. Douglas McNaught: From Mountains to Megabytes: The Digital Revolution in Indigenous Language Education in TaiwanChapter 6. Robert Teare: “Manx? That Was Never a Real Language!”Chapter 7. Joan A. Argenter & Virginia Unamuno: An Ethno-Educational Project with Wichi Communities in Argentina: Acquiring Language-in-Culture Knowledge from Traditional PracticesChapter 8. Kū Kahakalau: Place-based Liberatory Education with Aloha for an Independent Hawai’i Chapter 9. Ari Sherris: Situated Safaliba Practices in School Literacies That Resist Dominant Discourses in GhanaCoda: Teresa McCarty

Set against a background of social justice and linguistic human rights, the case studies in this book richly illustrate the educational and community efforts being made towards language sustainability and revitalization in places around the world where languages are regarded as of marginalized status. The chapters explore old and new strategies for reclaiming languages, the challenges that are encountered, and the resilience of those who choose to engage in such work.