“We Most Certainly Do Have a Language”

Abstract

This article proposes that languages should be embraced by the field of extinction studies while at the same time being mindful of the imbrication of colonialism in both the assignation and terminology of extinction and attempts to revive or reclaim endangered and extinct languages. It thus argues for a decolonizing approach to discourses of both language extinction and reclamation. The article starts by contextualizing the complementary extinction crises facing both species and languages. It then moves on to explore the links between colonialism and the extinction crisis for languages as well as the colonialist underpinnings of many attempts to document and revive endangered and extinct languages. The article then looks to a particularly unique case of decolonial language reclamation, focusing on the work of members of the Kariri-Xocó Indigenous community in present-day Northeast Brazil. It concludes that, by reclaiming their language in a way that is both agentive and coconstructed, the Kariri-Xocó bring together language, culture, and spirituality as tools for resistance.