Focusing on the Americas – home to 40 to 50 million Indigenous people – this book explores the history and current state of Indigenous language revitalization across this vast region. Complementary chapters on the USA and Canada, and Latin America and the Caribbean, offer a panoramic view while tracing nuanced trajectories of "top down" (official) and "bottom up" (grass roots) language planning and policy initiatives. Authored by leading Indigenous and non-Indigenous scholars, the book is organized around seven overarching themes: Policy and Politics; Processes of Language Shift and Revitalization; The Home-School-Community Interface; Local and Global Perspectives; Linguistic Human Rights; Revitalization Programs and Impacts; New Domains for Indigenous Languages Providing a comprehensive, hemisphere-wide scholarly and practical source, this singular collection simultaneously fills a gap in the language revitalization literature and contributes to Indigenous language revitalization efforts.

A collection of papers presented at the Fifth Annual Stabillizing Indigenous Languages Symposium. These papers discuss opportunities and obstacles faced by language revitalization efforts, programs and models for promoting indigenous languages, the role of writing in indigenous language renewal, and how new technology is being usd to compile indigenous language dictionaries, publish indigenous language materials, and link together dispersed indigenous language communities.

Comprehensive in scope yet full of ethnographic detail, this book examines the history of language policy by and for Native Americans, and contemporary language revitalization initiatives. Offering a critical-theory view and emphasizing the perspectives of revitalizers themselves, the book explores innovative language regenesis projects, the role of Indigenous youth in language reclamation, and prospects for Native American language and culture continuance.

Provides a culturally relevant and rich introduction to contemporary issues facing Native Americans.

"Teaching Indigenous Languages is a selection of papers presented at the Fourth Annual Stabilizing Indigenous Languages Symposium "Sharing Effective Language Renewal Practices" held at Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff, Arizona, on May 1, 2, and 3, 1997. This conference brought together nearly three hundred indigenous language experts, teachers, and community activists to share information on how indigenous languages can best be taught at home and at school. The twenty-five papers collected here represent the experiences and thoughts of indigenous language activists who are working in the United States, Canada, New Zealand, and Mexico. The papers are grouped under six categories: tribal and school roles, teaching students, teacher education, curriculum and materials development, language attitudes and promotion, and a summing up of thoughts about maintaining and renewing indigenous languages"--Back cover.

This book explores change and continuity in one of the most vital areas of Mayan culture--language use. The authors look specifically at Kaqchikel, one of the most commonly spoken Mayan languages, with case studies of three highland communities in which the balance is shifting between Kaqchikel and Spanish.

This book brings together ten essays relating to the manner in which postcolonial research is conducted and information put forth on the representation of indigenous cultures in the Americas. Divided into three parts, Part One describes the current state of affairs of postcolonial studies in the North American region; Part Two explores Mesoamerican culture, and Ñuu Savi and Zapotec studies in particular; and Part Three looks at the Andean region.

Language and Literacy Teaching for Indigenous Education: A Bilingual Approach presents a proposal for the inclusion of indigenous languages in the classroom. Based on extensive research and field work by the authors in communities in the United States and Mexico, the book explores ways in which the cultural and linguistic resources of indigenous communities can enrich the language and literacy program.