The Verbal Art of Kichwa Reclamation
Ecuador’s Indigenous languages are varied and contested. What can poetry and curing chants tell us about the experience of language change and the people working to reclaim them?…
Tag: International Year of Indigenous Languages
Rapping in Sakha
In Yakutsk, hip hop can be poetic, nostalgic, and even subversive. What can this inventive genre say about language relocalization and maintenance? A crowd gathers at Muus Khaia…
The Joy of Dialects
What a froggy mystery in Papua New Guinea can teach us about the pleasure and power of language diversity. Polopuak—frog. Since 2010, I have been working with Kala…
Going Native…In Other Words
The “Going Native” cartoon for this issue of Anthropology News was an exercise in celebration of the International Year of Indigenous Languages, personal discovery, and reverse linguistic imperialism…
Language Lessons
A documentary film shows the challenges faced by Soli children as they learn in a language that is not their own. But does the future have to be…
Indigenous Languages through a Reclamation Lens
The United Nations’ International Year of Indigenous Languages is likely to reproduce the colonial logics that underlie dominant narratives of language disappearance and loss. It doesn’t have to…