Local and Global Dimensions of Language Revitalization in the USA and Canada

This chapter examines the interaction of local, national, and global processes in Indigenous language revitalization and reclamation in the USA and Canada. We center our discussion around four related themes: (1) language revitalization as an expression of linguistic and educational sovereignty; (2) the role of personal and professional networks and collaborations; (3) the relationship of bottom-up and top-down language policymaking; and (4) the power of individual agents in revitalizing ancestral languages and reversing language decline. Extending Appadurai’s (2001) notion of “globalization from below,” recent work in Indigenous language planning and policy (LPP) has explored these processes as “globalization from the bottom up” (Hornberger & McCarty, 2012). Here, we examine how Native American communities have created new ideological and implementational spaces (Hornberger, 2006) through local LPP efforts that have influenced and have been influenced by LPP at the national and international levels

Geography · Linguistics · Political science · Indigenous Studies in Latin America · Philosophy

• The cultures of Native North American language documentation and revitalization

  Schwartz, Saul Schwartz et al.•Reviews in Anthropology•2016

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