The multilingual realities of language reclamation: Working with language contact, diversity, and change in endangered language education

Abstract

Purist ideologies of language and culture – fostered and encouraged by nation-states and formal schooling in the interest of homogenisation – have become deeply embedded in language-related disciplines, including documentary linguistics, applied linguistics, and education. As a result, dialect variation, multilingual repertoires, and intergenerational change are often viewed as problems by linguists and educators, who promote an elusive monolingual speaker norm which risks excluding learners and multilingual speakers. This paper draws on an ethnographic study of Isthmus Zapotec education in Oaxaca, Mexico, to illustrate strategies for collaborative, context-appropriate endangered language education, as exemplified in the practices of two Zapotec teachers. Reclamation efforts in Oaxaca, as elsewhere in the world, are challenged by the persistence of colonial-origin ideologies that devalue Indigenous languages, view multilingualism as a handicap, and assume that languages should be autonomous and standardised. These teachers respond by prioritising the creation of an affirming and flexible learning community that recognises multilingualism and facilitates negotiation of social tensions around language contact, change, and value.