ABSTRACT
This book has provided a number of cases which illustrate the potential ideologies and consequences – intended or unintended – of movements aimed at the revival and/or protection of an allegedly threatened language. Crucial questions we have asked include: How real are the threats identified to language in the cases studied? Whose interests are really being served when language is promoted as the key to a selected group’s survival? How do minority movements deal with ‘diversity’ and who benefits from being ‘diverse’? And what are the outcomes of revival movements in terms of social justice, inclusivity, and equality? In this concluding chapter, we first summarize our findings and highlight the most robust and common strands of our analyses. We then briefly review a number of contexts of revival that further illustrate the generalization drawn from our case studies. A general discussion follows as a way of reflecting on what we have learned. Finally, we address some basic questions commonly found in language debates and flesh out the most fundamental biases and misunderstandings from a linguistic viewpoint.
