This book brings together an interdisciplinary group of academic researchers in order to examine how and to what extent the challenge of language revitalisation should be reassessed and reconceptualised to take account of our fast-changing social context. The period of four decades between 1980 and 2020 that straddled the end of the twentieth century and the beginning of the twenty-first is widely regarded as one that witnessed a series of fundamental social, economic and political transformations. Many societies have become increasingly individualistic, mobile and diverse in terms of ethnicity and identity; their economies have become increasingly interconnected; and their governance structures have become increasingly complex, incorporating a growing number of different levels and actors. In addition, rapid advancements with regard to automated, digital and communication technology have had a far-reaching impact on how people interact with each other and participate in society. The chapters in this book aim to advance an agenda of key questions that should concern those working in the field of language revitalisation over the coming years, and the volume will be of interest to students, scholars and policy-makers in related areas including sociolinguistics, education, sociology, geography, political science, law, economics, Celtic studies, and communication technology.

"The field of revitalisation research and practice has been waiting for this book. It is well known that we are seeing a surge in systematic efforts to revitalise, renovate, invigorate and generally to protect and defend small and threatened languages. All across the world optimism and hard work are put towards this important, humane, just and enriching activity. This book demonstrates convincingly how wide-ranging social, economic and institutional change creates new conceptual and practical challenges for the global revitalisation project." -Joseph Lo Bianco, University of Melbourne, Australia This book brings together an interdisciplinary group of academic researchers in order to examine how and to what extent the challenge of language revitalisation should be reassessed and reconceptualised to take account of our fast-changing social context. The period of four decades between 1980 and 2020 that straddled the end of the twentieth century and the beginning of the twenty-first is widely regarded as one that witnessed a series of fundamental social, economic and political transformations. Many societies have become increasingly individualistic, mobile and diverse in terms of ethnicity and identity; their economies have become increasingly interconnected; and their governance structures have become increasingly complex, incorporating a growing number of different levels and actors. In addition, rapid advancements with regard to automated, digital and communication technology have had a far-reaching impact on how people interact with each other and participate in society. The chapters in this book aim to advance an agenda of key questions that should concern those working in the field of language revitalisation over the coming years, and the volume will be of interest to students, scholars and policy-makers in related areas including sociolinguistics, education, sociology, geography, political science, law, economics, Celtic studies, and communication technology. Huw Lewis is Senior Lecturer in Politics at Aberystwyth University, UK. Wilson McLeod is Professor of Gaelic at the University of Edinburgh, UK. .

Transforming Indigeneity is an examination of the role that language revitalization efforts play in cultural politics in the small city of S?o Gabriel da Cachoeira, located in the Brazilian Amazon. Sarah Shulist concentrates on how debates, discussions, and practices aimed at providing support for the Indigenous languages of the region shed light on both global issues of language revitalization and on the meaning of Indigeneity in contemporary Brazil. With 19 Indigenous languages still spoken today, S?o Gabriel is characterized by a high proportion of Indigenous people and an extraordinary amount of linguistic diversity. Shulist investigates what it means to be Indigenous in this setting of urbanization, multilingualism, and state intervention, and how that relates to the use and transmission of Indigenous languages. Drawing on perspectives from Indigenous and non-Indigenous political leaders, educators, students, and state agents, and by examining the experiences of urban populations, Transforming Indigeneity provides insight on the revitalization of Amazonian Indigenous languages amidst large social change.

This book describes the ways in which politicians, church leaders, generals, leaders of national movements and others try to influence our use of language. Professor Cooper argues that language planning is never attempted for its own sake. Rather it is carried out for the attainment of nonlinguistic ends such as national integration, political control, economic development, the pacification of minority groups, and mass mobilization. Many examples are discussed, including the revival of Hebrew as a spoken language, feminist campaigns to eliminate sexist bias in language, adult literacy campaigns, the plain language movement, efforts to distinguish American from British spelling, the American bilingual education movement, the creation of writing systems for unwritten languages, and campaigns to rid languages of foreign terms. Language Planning and Social Change is the first book to define the field of language planning and relate it to other aspects of social planning and to social change. The book is accessible and presupposes no special background in linguistics, sociology or political science. It will appeal to applied linguists and to those sociologists, economists and political scientists with an interest in language.

The Routledge Handbook of Language Revitalization is the first comprehensive overview of the language revitalization movement, from the Arctic to the Amazon and across continents. Featuring 47 contributions from a global range of top scholars in the field, the handbook is divided into two parts, the first of which expands on language revitalization issues of theory and practice while the second covers regional perspectives in an effort to globalize and decolonize the field. The collection examines critical issues in language revitalization, including: language rights, language and well-being, and language policy; language in educational institutions and in the home; new methodologies and venues for language learning; and the roles of documentation, literacies, and the internet. The volume also contains chapters on the kinds of language that are less often researched such as the revitalization of music, of whistled languages and sign languages, and how languages change when they are being revitalized. The Routledge Handbook of Language Revitalization is the ideal resource for graduate students and researchers working in linguistic anthropology and language revitalization and endangerment.

In this student-friendly text, Jones and Singh explore the phenomenon of language change, with a particular focus on the social contexts of its occurrence and possible motivations, including speakers’ intentions and attitudes. Presenting new or little-known data, the authors draw a distinction between "unconscious" and "deliberate" change. The discussion on "unconscious" change considers phenomena such as the emergence and obsolescence of individual languages, whilst the sections on "deliberate" change focus on issues of language planning, including the strategies of language revival and revitalization movements. There is also a detailed exploration of what is arguably the most extreme instance of "deliberate" change; language invention for real-world use. Examining an extensive range of language situations, Exploring Language Change makes a clear, but often ignored distinction between concepts such as language policy and planning, and language revival and revitalization. Also featured are a number of case studies which demonstrate that real-life language use is often much more complex than theoretical abstractions might suggest. This is a key text for students on a variety of courses, including sociolinguistics, historical linguistics and language policy and planning.

Of the approximately 7,000 languages in the world, at least half may no longer be spoken by the end of the twenty-first century. Languages are endangered by a number of factors, including globalization, education policies, and the political, economic and cultural marginalization of minority groups. This guidebook provides ideas and strategies, as well as some background, to help with the effective revitalization of endangered languages. It covers a broad scope of themes including effective planning, benefits, wellbeing, economic aspects, attitudes and ideologies. The chapter authors have hands-on experience of language revitalization in many countries around the world, and each chapter includes a wealth of examples, such as case studies from specific languages and language areas. Clearly and accessibly written, it is suitable for non-specialists as well as academic researchers and students interested in language revitalization. This book is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.

This book addresses the question of agency in the revitalisation of minoritised languages in Europe, with each chapter presenting an ethnographic account of how language policy operates in a specific linguistic context. The chapters investigate how grassroots actors shape revitalisation, and how individuals and groups negotiate historical factors, motivations, and institutionalised initiatives and policies in a variety of efforts. Between them the chapters address both contexts where social actors have gained and exerted agency in their revitalisation efforts, and contexts where issues of authority, authenticity and lack of engagement plague efforts; these chapters provide insights into how social actors work within and against social conventions and strictures. This book is available Open Access under a CC BY ND License.

This book gives fresh insight into the diverse ways in which the transmission of minority and heritage languages is carried out in a range of sociolinguistic contexts. When traditional modes of intergenerational transmission begin to break down, minority language and diaspora communities resort to other modes of transmission, out of necessity, to complement traditional mechanisms and secure language maintenance. This volume brings together a broad range of studies of these alternative modes of transmission, examining the complex and diverse practical, ideological and personal challenges that arise in different settings. Beyond addressing the dynamics of language use within the home and family, the book also emphasises the importance of the participation of the minority community itself in language and cultural transmission. These mechanisms and initiatives, sometimes overlooked or dismissed in the academic literature, will prove to be essential in maintaining and ensuring the survival of minority and heritage languages into the 21st century and beyond. The twelve chapters in the book are divided into four sections (intergenerational transmission; transmission in post-traditional families; alternatives to ‘traditional’ transmission; and transmission in diasporic contexts), and the language contexts, both minoritised and diasporic, which are discussed include Basque, Breton, Galician, Guernesais, Irish, Māori, Russian, Scottish Gaelic, Sorbian and Spanish. This book will be of interest to students and scholars of sociolinguistics, language acquisition, heritage language maintenance and revitalization, and language policy and planning.

Understanding sociolinguistics as a theoretical and methodological framework hopefully could attempt to promote change and social development in human communities. Yet it still presents important political, epistemological, methodological and theoretical challenges. A sociolinguistics of development, in which the revitalization of linguistic communities is the priority, opens new perspectives for the emerging field of linguistic documentation, in which the societal aspects of research, stressed by sociolinguistics, have frequently been marginal. The need to focus on the documentation of linguistic communities to contribute to the revitalization of these communities requires an in-depth revision of a number of different perspectives. Especially regarding the links between commonly separated fields of enquiry such as sociolinguistics, documentation and revitalization. Instead of creating mere museum pieces of academic contemplation for the future, as has been the major trend up to now in language documentation and even sociolinguistics, there is a growing concern to join forces to revitalize the actual use of endangered languages in order to place languages as a main focus of a community’s development which constitutes a major challenge for both scholars, civil society and speakers alike.