A world of Indigenous languages: Politics, pedagogies and prospects for language reclamation
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A world of Indigenous languages: Politics, pedagogies and prospects for language reclamation Edited by Teresa L. McCarty, Sheilah E. Nicholas and Gillian Wigglesworth. Multilingual Matters, Bristol, 2019, 264 pp. Linguistic Diversity and Language Rights series, vol. 17. ISBN 978-1-78892–306-4 (hbk), ISBN 978-1-78892-305-7 (pbk), ISBN 978-1-78892-308-8 (e-PUB), ISBN 978-1-78892–307-1 (e-PDF) Ulrike Hanemann1
© UNESCO Institute for Lifelong Learning and Springer Nature B.V. 2020
Choosing and speaking our languages is a human right. Indigenous languages make up at least 4,000 of the world’s roughly 7,000 languages, though it is impossible to ascertain the exact number. Today, most Indigenous languages are also minority languages that are spoken by a very small number of people due to colonisation, discrimination, assimilation into dominant cultures or even coercion to abandon Indigenous languages. For Indigenous peoples, their languages are associated with their identity, ethical values of their ancestors, knowledge systems that make them one with the land, their origin in or membership of a community, and are therefore critical to their survival and to the aspirations of their youth (Degawan 2019).1 Loss and endangerment of Indigenous languages have become a global concern reflected in a growing body of research and an international language reclamation movement. This book, which is part of the “Linguistic Diversity and Language Rights” series, was aptly published to mark the United Nations’ International Year of Indigenous Languages in 2019.2 In recognition of the crucial role that Indigenous languages play “in the daily lives of people, not only as a tool for communication, education, social integration, and development, but also as a repository for
1 Degawan, M. (2019). Indigenous languages: Knowledge and hope. The UNESCO Courier, January– March 2019, 7–8. Retrieved 22 May 2020 from https://en.unesco.org/sites/default/files/cou_1_19_en.pdf. 2 UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) (2019). 2019 International Year of Indigenous Languages [dedicated website]. https://en.iyil2019.org/ [accessed 21 May 2020].
* Ulrike Hanemann [email protected] 1
Independent International Literacy and Education Specialist, Hamburg, Germany
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each person’s unique identity, cultural history, traditions, and memory”(UN DESA 2019),3 the book offers a collection of commissioned chapters that explore the intricate links between Indigenous languages and cultural identity in the framework of language reclamation movements and their role and efforts in sustaining distinctive Indigenous ways of knowledge and being. The editors of the book follow the paradigm of language reclamation proposed by linguist Wesley Leonard (2017),4 “which moves beyond a focus on direct language measures such as creating new speakers (language revitalisation), to incorporate community epistemologies such as how ‘language’ is defined and given sociocultural meaning” (Leonard 2
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