-
#KeepOurLanguagesStrong: Indigenous language revitalization on social media during the early COVID-19 pandemic
Indigenous communities, organizations, and individuals work tirelessly to #KeepOurLanguagesStrong. The COVID-19 pandemic was potentially detrimental to Indigenous language revitalization (ILR) as this mostly in-person work shifted online. This article shares findings from an analysis of public social media posts, dated March through July 2020 and primarily from Canada and the…
-
Legislation, regulations, and policies concerning the revitalization of Indigenous languages in Canada and internationally
This a comparative report about: 1) federal, provincial and territorial legislation, regulations andpolicies that concern the revitalization of First Nations languages and other Indigenous languages in Canada, and, 2) legislation, regulations and policies that relevant international jurisdictions have put in place for revitalizing Indigenous languages in those places. McIvor, O.,…
-
Chikashshaat asilhlhat holissochi [Chickasaws are asking and writing]: Enacting Indigenous protocols in academic research and writing
As Chikashsha (Chickasaw) scholars and Chikashshanompa’ shaali’ (Chickasaw language learners/carriers), we utilize a dialogic and autoethnographic approach to explore the continuance between ancestral and community protocols for research. An account of the Chickasaw Nation’s language revitalization efforts is followed by a discussion of how Indigenous scholars engage in the writing…
-
Growing the fire within: Video
Indigenous Peoples have worked for decades to revitalize their languages. Much of the focus has been on children, but also critical are programs for the “missing generations” of adults who did not grow up with their Indigenous languages. Scholars and practitioners of Indigenous language revitalization gathered at the University of…
-
Growing the fire within: Report
Indigenous communities and organizations are working to reclaim and revitalize their languages. Indigenous adult language learners, who did not grow up speaking their ancestral tongues, are critical to these efforts. These adults may run language revitalization programs, teach the language in school- and community-settings, and use the language at home…
-
Cultivating enduring and reciprocal relationships in academia: An Indigenous mentor-mentee model
This article takes form following an exchange of letters in which the Chickasaw and Hopi authors reflected on an Indigenous mentorship relationship in higher education as the embodiment of a carved-out space for Indigenous ways of knowing and being. They begin the story of their faculty mentor-doctoral mentee relationship with…
-
Storying an interconnected web of relationships in Indigenous language reclamation work and scholarship
Indigenous language work is manifested in a diversity of community-led responses of resilience and persistence. Indigenous persons who are reclaiming their languages have entered academia with goals of contributing to community language reclamation efforts and broader resurgence movements. Adapting Archibald’s (2008) concept of storywork—experiential narratives that privilege a cultural lens—we…
-
Indigenous language learning impacts, challenges and opportunities in COVID19 times
In March 2020, the COVID-19 global health crisis caused disruption to the daily lives and regular practices of most human populations. Indigenous language revitalization (ILR) work is often undertaken face-to-face and regularly includes the most elderly populations in our communities. Therefore, ILR activities that were not already online were vastly…
-
Enacting hope through narratives of Indigenous language and culture reclamation
In globalizing landscapes, Indigenous ways of knowing and being persist in their connectedness to specific geographies, even as they are transformed by migrations, both forced and voluntary, and dynamic exchanges. This paper presents narratives of Indigenous and ally scholars which explore what it means to enact language and culture reclamation…
-
Weaving words: Conceptualizing language reclamation through culturally-significant metaphor
When the Creator called us to our homelands to become a distinct people, Chickasaws received the gift of our language—Chikashshanompa’—with which to speak to each other, the land, the plants, the animals, and the Creator. Chickasaws have held sacred the gift of our living language, passing it from generation to…