ABSTRACT
This chapter considers the particular challenges and delights of raising children to speak a threatened or indigenous language. Families who decide to embark on this journey often have cultural and political motivation and are well aware of the challenges they face in ensuring that their child has sufficient input and opportunity for interaction in the language. Usually, adult speakers of endangered and indigenous languages are also proficient in one or more other languages, and there may be no real communicative need for the child to use the endangered language. This requires particular effort and determination on the part of the parents to support the child’s language development, particularly if the parent is not themselves a first-language speaker of the threatened language. The arrangements made to find language education opportunities for children and adults are discussed. The chapter is enriched with excerpts from interviews with one Māori and two Sámi mothers.
