check out our custom curated list of go-to resources for all things language.

Endangered Languages & Language Conservation

• Abley, Mark. 2003. Spoken Here: Travels Among Threatened Languages. London: Heinemann.

• Campbell, Lyle & Anna Belew. 2018. Cataloguing the World's Endangered Languages. New York: Routledge.

• Crystal, David. 2000. Language Death. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

• Dalby, Andrew. 2003. Language in Danger: The Loss of Linguistic Diversity and the Threat to our Future. New York: Columbia University Press.

• Evans, Nicholas. 2010. Dying Words: Endangered Languages and What They Have to Tell Us. Hoboken: Wiley-Blackwell.

• Hagège, Claude. Halte à la Mort des Langues. Paris: Odile Jacob.

• Hale, Kenneth, Michael Krauss, Lucille Watamahogie, Akira Yamamoto, Collette Craig, LaVerne Masayesva Jeanne, & Nora England. 1992. Endangered Languages. Language 68. 1-42.

• Harrison, K. David. 2007. When Languages Die: The Extinction of the World's Languages and the Erosion of Human Knowledge. New York: Oxford University Press.

• Harrison, K. David. 2010. The Last Speakers: The Quest to Save the World's Most Endangered Languages. Washington, D.C.: National Geographic.

• Kulick, Don. 1992. Language Shift and Cultural Reproduction: Socialization, Self and Syncretism in a Papua New Guinean Village. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

• Kulick, Don. 2019. A Death in the Rainforest: How a Language and a Way of Life Came to an End in Papua New Guinea. Chapel Hill: Algonquin Books.

• Maffi, Luisa (ed.). 2001. On Biocultural Diversity: Linking Language, Knowledge, and the Environment. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press.

• Maffi, Luisa. 2005. Linguistic, Cultural, and Biological Diversity. Annual Review of Anthropology 34. 599-617.

• Mufwene, Salikoko S. 2004. Language Birth and Death. Annual Review of Anthropology 33. 201-222.

• Nettle, Daniel & Suzanne Romaine. 2000. Vanishing Voices: The Extinction of the World's Languages. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

• Thomason, Sarah G. 2015. Endangered Languages: An Introduction (Cambridge Textbooks in Linguistics). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Language Conservation & Linguistic Fieldwork

• Bowern, Claire. 2015. Linguistic Fieldwork: A Practical Guide (2nd ed.). New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

• Gippert, Jost, Nikolaus P. Himmelmann, & Ulrike Mosel (ed.). 2006. Essentials of Language Documentation (Trends in Linguistics. Studies and Monographs). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.

• Payne, Thomas E. 1997. Describing Morphosyntax: A Guide for Field Linguists. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

• Sakel, Jeanette & Daniel L. Everett. 2012. Linguistic Fieldwork: A Student Guide (Cambridge Textbooks in Linguistics). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

• Vaux, Bert, Justin Cooper, Emily Tucker. 2007. Linguistic Field Methods. Eugene: Wipf & Stock.

Revitalization & Revivalistics

• Grenoble, Lenore A. & Lindsay J. Whaley. 2006. Saving Languages: An Introduction to Language Revitalization. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

• Hinton, Leanne & Ken Hale. 2013. The Green Book of Language Revitalization in Practice. Leiden: BRILL.

• Hinton, Leanne. 2002. How to Keep Your Language Alive: A Commonsense Approach to One-On-One Learning. Berkeley: Heyday.

• Hinton, Leanne (ed.). 2013. Bringing Our Languages Home: Language Revitalization for Families. Berkeley: Heyday.

• Zuckermann, Ghil'ad & Michael Walsh. 2011. Stop, Revive, Survive: Lessons from the Hebrew Revival Applicable to the Reclamation, Maintenance and Empowerment of Aboriginal Languages and Cultures. Australian Journal of Linguistics 31(1). 111-127.

• Zuckermann, Ghil'ad. 2020. Revivalistics: From the Genesis of Israeli to Language Reclamation in Australia and Beyond. New York: Oxford University Press.

Sign Languages & Indigenous Communities

• Fox, Margalit. 2008. Talking Hands: What Sign Language Reveals About the Mind. New York: Simon & Schuster.

Works on Mother Tongue-Based Multilingual Education (MTB-MLE)

• UNESCO. 2008. Mother Tongue Matters: Local Language as a Key to Effective Learning. Paris: UNESCO.

• UNESCO. 1953. The Use of the Vernacular Languages in Education (Monographs on Foundations of Education, No. 8). Paris: UNESCO.

• Wagner, Daniel A. 2018. Learning as Development: Rethinking International Education in a Changing World. New York: Routledge.

Academic Journals on Language Conservation Research

• Language Documentation & Conservation.

• Language Documentation & Description.

Popular Works on Endangered Languages (Articles)

• Languages: Why We Must Save Dying Tongues (Rachel Nuwer. BBC 2014).

• Can Language Save Communities Under Threat From A Globalised World? (Padmaparna Ghosh. Huffington Post, 2018).

• Disappearing Languages (How We Get to Next).

• The Interpreter: Has a Remote Amazonian Tribe Upended Our Understanding of Language? (John Colapinto. New Yorker, 2007).

Regional Focus -- The Americas

• King, Kendall A. 2001. Language Revitalization Processes and Prospects: Quichua in the Ecuadorian Andes. Bristol: Multilingual Matters.

• Meek, Barbra A. 2012. We Are Our Language: An Ethnography of Language Revitalization in a Northern Athabaskan. Tucson: University of Arizona Press.

Regional Focus -- Asia-Pacific

• Bradley, David & Joshua A. Fishman (eds). 2005. Language Endangerment in the Sinosphere. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.

• Rau, D. Victoria & Margaret J. Florey (eds). Documenting and Revitalizing Austronesian Languages (LD&C Special Publication No. 1). Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press.

Regional Focus -- Africa

• Kandybowicz, Jason & Harold Torrence. 2017. Africa's Endangered Languages: Documentary and Theoretical Approaches. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

• Vigouroux, Cécile B. & Salikoko S. Mufwene. 2008. Globalization and Language Vitality: Perspectives from Africa. New York: Continuum.

Regional Focus -- Europe

• Ferreira, Vera & Peter Bouda (eds). 2016. Language Documentation and Conservation in Europe. Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press.

Related Texts

• Davis, Wade. 2007. Light at the Edge of the World: A Journey Through the Realm of Vanishing Cultures. Vancouver: Douglas & McIntyre.

• Davis, Wade. 2009. The Wayfinders: Why Ancient Wisdom Matters in the Modern World. Toronto: House of Anansi Press.

• Ginsburgh, Victor & Shiomo Weber. 2011. How Many Languages Do We Need? The Economics of Linguistic Diversity. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

• Plotkin, Mark J. 1994. Tales of a Shaman's Apprentice. New York: Penguin Books.

• Sachs, Jeffrey D. 2015. The Age of Sustainable Development. New York: Columbia University Press.