This monographic issue is framed within Unesco’s Indigenous Languages Decade (2022-2032) (Indigenous Languages Decade (2022-2032) | UNESCO), which aims to “draw the world’s attention to the plight of many Indigenous languages and to mobilize stakeholders and resources for their preservation, revitalization and promotion”. It focuses on the description and, especially, the positioning of endangered languages and language varieties in the Americas with a view to their revitalization and vindication.

For minoritized languages speakers across the Americas, their mother tongue often represents much more than a mere communication tool —it can become an identity symbol, articulate social relations and bonds, convey wisdoms and traditions from one generation to another, structure thinking, and heal, among many other roles. Nevertheless, it is known that languages, as social representations, allow both empowering and subordinating, creating stereotypes and, often, determining individuals’ social status. This is why many endangered languages are linked to discrediting and stigmatization, stereotypes linked to marginalization and underdevelopment, invisibility or some perceived uselessness. This compels speakers to processes of abandonment and substitution, seriously affecting particularly Indigenous languages in the Americas.

In light of this, we propose the monographic issue Endangered Languages and Varieties in the Americas, dedicated to endangered languages and language varieties in the Americas, with special emphasis on Indigenous languages, given their vulnerable situation, with the aim of revitalizing and vindicating them. Also, we will consider contact-induced linguistic variations (Delforge, 2012; García Tesoro, 2023; Haboud, 1998; Mick & Palacios, 2013), those stemming from migration phenomena or cross-border languages (Avilés González & Ibarra Templos, 2016; García Tesoro, 2017; Haboud, 2023; Kendal & Haboud, 2014; Moreno Fernández, 2013), and others, sharing minoritization or endangerment, across the Americas.

For this monographic issue, we expect works focused on critical sociolinguistics (Arratia & Limachi, 2019; Niño Murcia et al, 2020) or social semiotics (Hodge & Kress, 1988, Kress, 2009), addressing revitalization efforts and initiatives, languages in contact, language rights, language ideologies (Barrett, 2006; Jansen et al., 2021) (on Indigenous languages, Spanish variations among Afro-America communities, or contact with Indigenous languages, and so on), as well as emerging languages and variations in cross-border areas, or stemming from migration processes or translanguaging situations (García & Wei, 2014). Similarly, works dealing with the study of language practices will be welcome (Sánchez Moreano & Blestel, 2021) as instruments informing social relations, reproducing or transforming power relations between minoritized language speaking societies, and hegemonic language speakers.

Thus, we intend to make visible and draw attention on the plight endured by numerous languages and substandard variations across the Americas, along with contributing to their positioning and revitalization.

Research Lines

• Critical sociolinguistics
• Cross-border sociolinguistics
• Policy, planning and implementation of endangered languages and varieties
• Revitalization and vindication of endangered languages and varieties
• Linguistic ideologies and attitudes towards languages and their varieties
• Displacement of endangered languages and varieties
• Linguistic rights
• Linguistic practices

Types of articles:

Fit within one of the categories of articles published by the journal: empirical and case studies, methodological and theoretical articles, and literature reviews.

References

Arratia, M. J. & Limachi, V. P. (2019). Construyendo una sociolingüística del sur. Reflexiones sobre las culturas y lenguas indígenas de América Latina en los nuevos escenarios. Cochabamba: PROEIB Andes / Facultad de Humanidades/ Universidad Mayor de San Simón.

Avilés González, K. J. & Ibarra Templos, Y. M. (2016). Identidades sociolingüísticas y migración internacional. Reacciones frente a la discriminación. Alteridades, 26 (51), 73-84. https://www.scielo.org.mx/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S0188-70172016000100073&lng=es&nrm=iso

Barrett, R. (2006). Language ideology and racial inequality: Competing functions of Spanish in an Anglo-owned Mexican restaurant. Language in Society, 35(2), 163-204. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0047404506060088

Delforge, A. M. (2012). ‘Nobody wants to sound like a provinciano’: The recession of unstressed vowel devoicing in the Spanish of Cusco, Peru. Journal of Sociolinguistics, 16(3), 311-335.

García, O. & Wei, L (2014). Translanguaging: Language, bilingualism & education. Palgrave Macmillan.

García Tesoro, A. I. (2017). Valores evidenciales y discursivos del pretérito perfecto compuesto en narraciones de migrantes andinos en Cuzco. En A. Palacios (Coord.), Variación y cambio lingüístico en situaciones de contacto (pp. 79-96). Iberoamericana/Vervuert.

García Tesoro, A. I. (2023). Two contact induced grammatical changes in Spanish in contact with Tz’utujil in Guatemala. En B. Baird, O. Balam, & M. C. Parafita Couto, (Eds.), Linguistic advances in Central American Spanish (pp. 145-167). Brill Publishers.

Haboud, M. (1998). Quichua y castellano en los Andes Ecuatorianos: los efectos de un contacto prolongado. Abya-Yala/GTZ.

Haboud, M. (2023). Las múltiples facetas de la migración y el contacto lingüístico. De (re)encuentros y desencuentros. En A. Speranza (Coord.), Lenguaje y cultura. Homenaje a Angelita Martínez (pp. 381-413). Universidad Nacional de La Plata.

Hodge, R. & Kress, G. (1988). Social semiotics. Polity Press.

Jansen, S., Higuera del Moral, S., Barzen, J. S., Reimann, P. & Opolka, M. (2021). Demystifying bilingualism: How metaphor guides research towards mythification. Palgrave Macmillan.

Jansen, S. & Rosado Valencia, E. (2023). When “civilized” and “savage” languages meet: Language ideological work in 19th century travel accounts on the Ecuadorian Amazon. Journal of Postcolonial Linguistics, 9, 1-24.

Kendal, A. K. & Haboud, M. (2014). International migration and Quichua language shift in the Ecuadorian Andes. En T. McCarty (Ed.), Ethnography and language policy (pp. 139-160). Routledge.

Kress, G. (2009) Multimodality: A social semiotic approach to contemporary communication. Routledge.

Mick, C. & Palacios, A. (2013). Mantenimiento o sustitución de rasgos lingüísticos indexados socialmente: migrantes de zonas andinas en Lima. Lexis, xxxvii(2), 341-380.

Moreno Fernández, F. (2013). Lingüística y migraciones hispánicas. Lengua y migración, 5(2), 67-89.

Murcia, M., Zavala, V. & de Los Heros, S. (Eds.) (2020). Hacia una sociolingüística crítica. Desarrollos y debates. Instituto de Estudios Peruanos.

Sánchez Moreano, S. & Blestel, E. (Eds.) (2021). Prácticas lingüísticas heterogéneas: Nuevas perspectivas para el estudio del español en contacto con lenguas amerindias. (Contact and Multilingualism 4). Language Science Press. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.5636761

Unesco (2021). Evaluation of UNESCO’s action to revitalize and promote Indigenous languages within the framework of the international year of Indigenous language. https://bit.ly/3YNjPPZ

Languages of Publication

Spanish, English, French, Portuguese

Specifications

All proposals should:

• Not exceed 400 words, including references.
• Include title, authors’ names, affiliation, and e-mail.
• Be written in Spanish, English, Portuguese, or French.
• Specify the category and research area you have chosen.
• Include a detailed description of the content of the article. For research articles (empirical or case studies), be sure to include a description of the problem, your research questions, setting description (town, country, institution profile, level of instruction), participants, method (type of study, data gathered, analysis), main findings, and implication. In case you are reporting an intervention, please include details on that intervention (which type, purpose, time span, etc.)
• Include bibliographic references.
• Be clear, precise, coherent, and to the point.

Submissions

Please submit your proposals before September 30 2024 to Íkala’s e-mail address: revistaikala@udea.edu.co, under the Subject: Proposal for the Special Issue Endangered Languages and Varieties Across the Americas