Someone Else's Language On the Role of Linguists in Language Revitalization

Abstract

This paper questions whether language revitalization efforts need linguists, given the often divergent goals of linguists and language educators, and discusses some of the pitfalls encountered by well-meaning outsider linguists who are eager to be helpful to such efforts. It is suggested that linguists who do not speak an endangered language but wish to be helpful might find that they can make contributions that are not directly related to their expertise as linguists. The author also describes her experience as a founding member of the Navajo Language Academy and as a coauthor with Dr. Parsons Yazzie of the Navajo textbook, Diné Bizaad Bínáhoo’aah (Rediscovering the Navajo Language). Being invited to speak at the 2008 conference on Stabilizing Indigenous Languages was an honor about which I had mixed feelings. On the one hand, I was pleased to be thought of as someone whose work is relevant to people working to revitalize languages. On the other hand, I suspected that the conference organizers were hoping that I would share some wisdom about how important linguists

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