This volume brings together a collection of meaningful essays on 12 indigenous languages from across North and South America in time to commemorate the 2019 International Year of Indigenous Languages as declared by the United Nations. As the “stuff of everyday social life,” indigenous languages relay multiple layers of identity that demand a close reading (p. 5). The timely essays in this volume provide rich, descriptive examples of the perseverance of indigenous speakers, who face rejection, exclusion, racism, and the historical and political processes that affect their everyday language maintenance. The scholarship in this well-organized book, with themes that connect across the various chapters, relies on a variety of historical, linguistic, and anthropological methods and approaches. The authors' interdisciplinary research moves chronologically, from the colonial period to the twenty-first century. The connecting themes are “political economies of language,” “language choice and authority,” “writing and polity,” and “political concept formation” (p....
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