ABSTRACT
This chapter starts with an account of a performance: the re-enactment of the arrival of the first missionary in June 2016. In this performance, performers wore either blue t-shirts, representing the Mawng language, or yellow t-shirts, representing the Kunwinjku language. The explanations people gave for their choice of t-shirt illustrate the inseparability of social and linguistic categories and how both kinds of categories are skilfully negotiated in context. Chapter 6 also reviews the findings of the book, tracing connections with the literature in two directions. The first looks at recent work on small-scale multilingualism around the world, which emphasises flexibility in how people draw on their languages and identities, whereas earlier work implied that the co-existence of many small languages relied on essentialist identities and strict rules around language use. The second direction looks at how one language often comes to be a communilect, a symbol of belonging in each remote Indigenous community, as Mawng has at Warruwi. Elsewhere communilects have displaced other Indigenous languages but at Warruwi, many other languages are still spoken alongside Mawng.
