Beyond Linguistic Empowerment: Language Revitalization Through Social Justice

It is estimated that at least 43% of the world’s languages are consid- ered endangered (Moseley 2010). To address this problem, language revitalization efforts are being carried out across the globe, which in- clude language documentation, development of literacy materials in community language(s), and the use of the mother tongue in basic ed- ucation, among others. Despite these efforts, however, success stories are few and far between. What does it take for a language to be revitalized? We argue that language revitalization efforts are merely palliative measures, and instead, we need to reframe our approach within a wider social justice framework in order to properly address the issue of lan- guage endangerment.