June 23 1683 - William Penn signs friendship treaty with Lenni Lenape indians in Pennsylvania; only treaty "not sworn to, nor broken"

Language & Communication

Available online 18 May 2015

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Who can speak Lenape in Pennsylvania? Authentication and language learning in an endangered language community of practice ^☆

• Miranda Weinberg , 
• Haley De Korne^, 

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doi:10.1016/j.langcom.2015.04.003

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Abstract

How are new speakers of an endangered language created? In this paper we draw on a three-year ethnographic case study to explore the processes through which a group of learners at a Pennsylvania college came to be identified as speakers of Lenape, a language indigenous to the eastern United States. Using a communities of practice framework, we analyze how language learning was facilitated and how the identities of community members were negotiated and contested through processes of authentication. A community of practice lens affords a useful framework for understanding how this successful learning community functioned, and for identifying factors that may benefit other language revitalization initiatives.

Keywords

• Indigenous language revitalization; 
• Community of practice; 
• Language learning; 
• Lenape; 
• Authentication;
• Identity

☆

We are grateful to the support and input of Shelley DePaul and the Lenape Nation of Pennsylvania, Ted Fernald and the Swarthmore College Linguistics Department, and Nancy Hornberger and the University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Education. We also appreciate the input of editor Sarah Shulist and two anonymous reviewers. Any faults remain our own.

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Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

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