Abstract: Data from long-term research in two ideologically divergent Native American linguistic communities demonstrate the importance, first, of indigenous multilingualisms and, second, of distinctive ideologies of multilingualism in shaping the divergent language contact outcomes and practices of those communities as they adapted to such forces as economic incorporation, colonization, assimilationist policies, and later decolonization and attempted language revitalization. Indigenous ideological differences in these communities were key factors in producing divergent patterns of language shift as well as in community efforts to document and revitalize their respective heritage languages. The Village of Tewa (NE Arizona) still partially retains a multilingual adaptation in all generations except youth and young adults (Kroskrity, 1993; 2014). The Western Mono (Central California) were traditionally multilingual with neighboring languages of the Yokuts and Southern Sierra Miwok groups (Kroskrity, 2009a). Though both groups were historically multilingual, multilingual practices were differentially influenced by distinctive language ideologies such as those emphasizing purism/syncretism and the expressive/utilitarian functions of language. This observation suggests the importance of understanding indigenous multilingualisms and their consequences for language contact within their language ideological assemblages (Kroskrity, 2018).

Although the languages of Native North America and the linguistic communities that spoke these languages once provided the key data for American anthropology's early agenda under Boas, linguistic anthropologists continue their study in a manner inflected to contemporary political economic realities and theoretical concerns. One area of scholarship that displays some continuity with earlier research is the study of Native American place-names, but even here contemporary researchers have explored the ethnographic surround of naming practices, including the multilingualism and multiculturalism of today's indigenous communities. Other research topics that have had less precedent include verbal art, language ideologies, and linguistic racism. Recent research in Native North American verbal art has advanced the appreciation of indigenous poetics but also developed a “critical” ethnopoetics that attends to a larger political economic context. Recent research on language ideologies has explored such topics as new patterns of language and identity and the role of ideologies in language revitalization.