
GSE Faculty Research
Document Type
Journal Article
Date of this Version
12-1998
Publication Source
Language in Society
Volume
27
Issue
4
Start Page
439
Last Page
458
DOI
10.1017/S0047404500020182
Abstract
Indigenous languages are under siege, not only in the US but around the world – in danger of disappearing because they are not being transmitted to the next generation. Immigrants and their languages worldwide are similarly subjected to seemingly irresistible social, political, and economic pressures. This article discusses a number of such cases, including Shawandawa from the Brazilian Amazon, Quechua in the South American Andes, the East Indian communities of South Africa, Khmer in Philadelphia, Welsh, Maori, Turkish in the UK, and Native Californian languages. At a time when phrases like “endangered languages” and “linguicism” are invoked to describe the plight of the world's vanishing linguistic resources in their encounter with the phenomenal growth of world languages such as English, the cases reviewed here provide consistent and compelling evidence that language policy and language education serve as vehicles for promoting the vitality, versatility, and stability of these languages, and ultimately promote the rights of their speakers to participate in the global community on and IN their own terms.
Copyright/Permission Statement
© Cambridge University Press
Keywords
endangered languages, immigrant languages, indigenous languages, language revitalization, linguicism
Recommended Citation
Hornberger, N. H. (1998). Language Policy, Language Education, Language Rights: Indigenous, Immigrant, and International Perspectives. Language in Society, 27 (4), 439-458. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S0047404500020182
Included in
Education Commons, Linguistics Commons, Other Languages, Societies, and Cultures Commons
Date Posted: 02 March 2015
This document has been peer reviewed.