ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the loss of Indigenous languages as a cause of poor mental and physical health and argues that Indigenous languages are crucial for the wellbeing of their speakers and society. Around the world, Indigenous language speakers are shifting from their ancestral language to a majority language. The chapter discusses three cases: Aborigines in Canada and Australia and Ryukyuans in Japan. They allow us to identify shared phenomena in polities that are different in terms of their history, demographic composition, multilingual and multicultural awareness and language and educational policies. Sociolinguistic research studies socio-economic changes that cause language endangerment. Such research has shown that language endangerment is an effect of power inequality between the majority and minorities. Studies of the effects of language loss on the relevant speech community are rare. Strengthening endangered languages is an activity that restores self-worth, self-esteem, self-determination and self-confidence.
