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Mayan Language Revival and Revitalization Politics: Linguists and Linguistic Ideologies
Author(s) -
England Nora C.
Publication year - 2003
Publication title -
american anthropologist
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.51
H-Index - 85
eISSN - 1548-1433
pISSN - 0002-7294
DOI - 10.1525/aa.2003.105.4.733
Subject(s) - maya , linguistics , ideology , language ideology , language shift , vitality , focus (optics) , language revitalization , sociology , politics , sociology of language , history , natural language , political science , comprehension approach , indigenous , philosophy , archaeology , law , physics , ecology , theology , optics , biology
Although spoken by a relatively large population, Mayan languages show signs of language shift and loss because the children in some of the speech communities are no longer learning the language. At the same time, Mayas are participating in a movement of cultural reaffirmation, a principle focus of which is language. Maya linguists are central in formulating and reshaping language ideologies to further the goals of revitalization, and they play a significant role in cultural/linguistic activism. This article shows the extent of the contribution of linguistics to Mayan language vitality through an analysis of language ideologies and how they have been reformulated by Maya linguists, and by a review of an apparently successful attempt at reversing language loss that has arisen through an integrated community‐based program of cultural revitalization that centers, to a large extent, on language and makes specific use of linguistics. [Keywords: language shift, language ideologies, language revitalization, Mayan languages, Maya movement]