UC San Diego

In this thesis I explore the Sociocultural aspects of Kumiay language revitalization through the concept of language ideology. The Kumiay people are Indigenous to the borderlands of the United States and Mexico of the California/ Baja California region. According to common parameters of language endangerment analysis, their language is considered to be at the extreme end of language endangerment with around 30 speakers of the language, mostly in the 60+ years age bracket. By focusing on situated moments of discourse about the language, I analyze ideological underpinnings that individuals express about the language that reveal larger social and cultural processes influencing the loss and revitalization of the language. From this I argue that in order to perform the work of indigenous language revitalization, a major part of this work is to contextualize the work on the language in a wider perspective of historic, social and cultural currents of language loss.