Teaching
Linguistic Anthropology
-
Unit 2
Language and Diversity
Linguistic anthropology lays plain the dynamic nature of languages and how they make possible a variety of different understandings of the world around us. In this unit, students will consider language creation and extinction, and explore a diversity of languages and the various ways researchers study languages.
Sapiens articles
Do You See What I See?
Cultural groups throughout the world talk about color differently—some don’t even have a word for color. So is color perception a universal human experience or not?
Where Do “New” Languages Come From?
Anthropologists and linguists are working to understand how complex systems of communication emerge—and what they reveal about how to keep rare or threatened languages alive.
Keywords
View All in Communication
![Two people carrying baskets on their heads look up at a billboard showing the faces of two men.]()
![Five young people stroll in front of a gray concrete building with numerous narrow rectangular windows.]()
![Two cellular phones sit on a small wooden shelf beside family photos and other mementos.]()
![In a bright white art gallery, plaques on the wall spell out interjections such as “Hmm,” “Pff,” and “Ach” in colorful block letters. To the side of the artwork, two people stand gazing into an adjoining room.]()
![Situated on display in a spacious building is a large, illuminated sculpture of an ancient humanoid face with glowing neon lines highlighting its features.]()
![The silhouette of a person shows against the deep magenta and red hues of a sunset, with the sky otherwise dark. An island rests in the distance.]()
In Zambia, Jehovah’s Witnesses and Chinese Migrants Find Common Ground
In many parts of Africa, investments and migration from China have sparked tensions with local residents—but some Chinese migrants are finding a welcoming community in Mandarin-speaking Zambian Witness congregations.
Want to Make Academic Writing More Readable? Ask a High School Student.
The Demystifying Language Project brings together New York City high school and college students with linguistic anthropologists to make research on language and power available for broad audiences.
Caring Across Distance—One Call at a Time
An anthropologist explores how a phone call home may seem simple but carries layers of meaning for migrating nurses and their families in India.
Huh? The Valuable Role of Interjections
Utterances like “um,” “wow,” and “mm-hmm” aren’t garbage, they keep conversations flowing.
The Hopes and Hazards for AI in Reconstructing Ancient Worlds
An archaeologist explains how generative artificial intelligence has the potential to reshape our views of ancient people, arguing that a critical perspective is needed to use this technical innovation and avoid misrepresentations.
Broken Sonnets for the Anthropocene
The speaker in this broken sonnet form utters disobedience for structures that extract care in the Anthropocene.
View All in Identity
![]()
![The out-of-focus profile of a man stands in the foreground while behind him in the distance lies a cluster of rudimentary shelters at the foot of a brown-colored hill dotted with tufts of brownish-green brush.]()
![A family photograph in a photo album shows a woman in a white shirt with a purse on her lap sitting next to two young children in red sweaters.]()
![Two women wearing headscarves, face masks, and black and white dresses called “shalwar kameez” sit beside each other in a room with rows of blue-upholstered chairs as a handful of other people mill about.]()
![Bathed in purplish-blue light, musicians with guitars, microphones, and a drum kit perform on stage. Behind them hangs a black, blue, and white flag adorned with the band’s name.]()
![Green, leafy trees grow out of a swamp that has green growth in the center of it.]()
Five Questions for Anand Pandian
In this live discussion, anthropologist Anand Pandian shares insights from his timely new book, Something Between Us: The Everyday Walls of American Life, and How to Take Them Down.
Surveillance and Suspicion From the Margins
A Venezuelan anthropologist reflects on distrust he felt from residents of informal settlements in Santiago, Chile—and how his experiences track global trends of fearing outsiders.
The Day I Heard My Mother’s Accent
In a personal essay, an anthropologist reflects on her family’s dual Syrian and French heritage.
The Many Lives of a Face Mask
An anthropologist explores how the COVID-19–era surgical face mask went from a health precaution to a fashion choice among women in Peshawar, Pakistan.
How Heavy Metal Fuels Indigenous Revival in Patagonia
An anthropologist plunges into the world of Patagonian heavy metal music in Argentina to explore how the genre relates to language and cultural revitalization.
Tallahassee Ghazal
Using an ancient Arabic poetic form, a poet-archaeologist from Florida cycles through feelings of entrapment growing up queer in the U.S. South. But in the end, they celebrate love for this place—and that “most of us are breathing.”
View All in Indigenous
![Parts of a wall clock lie on a table disassembled.]()
![A horse and another animal graze alongside a dirt road rising across the right side of a photo. The shines on a hazy scene above a village.]()
![A group of people in elaborate bright-colored ceremonial clothing and headdresses stands in the middle of a tree-lined street in daylight.]()
![Kashmiri men separate chestnuts from mud while in boats floating serenely across a silvery lake. Trees are reflected on the water's surface.]()
![The National Park Service Insignia—a pine tree, snow-capped mountain, and buffalo within a brown arrowhead shape—adorns the shoulder of a gray sweatshirt.]()
![A mosque, shrine, and houses lie in ruins after having been burned.]()
Listening Against the Threshold of Pain
SAPIENS’ 2025 poet-in-residence situates her listening in Kashmir and Germany during and after her fieldwork, contextualizing her contributions to SAPIENS this year.
Sounding the Border
An anthropologist-poet listens to echoes of laughter and other sounds of crossings in Kashmir.
The Sacred Heartbeat at Houston Pride
An anthropologist participates in the Houston Pride Parade, offering dance, music, and prayer with others to counter intensifying oppression faced by queer and Latine communities.
Dreamscapes of Refusal: A Chorus
SAPIENS poet-in-residence for 2025 listens to a chorus of dreams in her field recordings from Kashmir.
The Cost of Cutting Anthropology Out of U.S. National Parks
A former National Park Service anthropologist reflects on the vital role of cultural anthropology to the agency’s mission—and what might be lost if the Trump administration’s cuts to federal funding and staffing continue.
Listening to Murmurs
Through her field recordings, SAPIENS poet-in-residence for 2025 listens to murmurings of clay, debris, and time in Kashmir’s Tsaar.
View All in Language
![A family photograph in a photo album shows a woman in a white shirt with a purse on her lap sitting next to two young children in red sweaters.]()
![Two people carrying baskets on their heads look up at a billboard showing the faces of two men.]()
![Five young people stroll in front of a gray concrete building with numerous narrow rectangular windows.]()
![A black-and-white photograph shows people in dark suits and ties performing on a fashion runway. In the center, a person wearing a wide-brimmed hat and a plaid women’s suit holds a small dog. Above the performers, a sign reads “love ball.” Photographers aim their cameras at the performers.]()
![In a bright white art gallery, plaques on the wall spell out interjections such as “Hmm,” “Pff,” and “Ach” in colorful block letters. To the side of the artwork, two people stand gazing into an adjoining room.]()
![White orchid flowers catch the light streaming in from the right-hand side of a photo, with the rest of the image in darkness.]()
The Day I Heard My Mother’s Accent
In a personal essay, an anthropologist reflects on her family’s dual Syrian and French heritage.
In Zambia, Jehovah’s Witnesses and Chinese Migrants Find Common Ground
In many parts of Africa, investments and migration from China have sparked tensions with local residents—but some Chinese migrants are finding a welcoming community in Mandarin-speaking Zambian Witness congregations.
Want to Make Academic Writing More Readable? Ask a High School Student.
The Demystifying Language Project brings together New York City high school and college students with linguistic anthropologists to make research on language and power available for broad audiences.
Shading U.S. Empire in Puerto Rico’s Ballroom Scene
A linguistic anthropologist explores the queer Ballroom scene in San Juan—and how performers are incorporating critiques of colonialism into the art form.
Huh? The Valuable Role of Interjections
Utterances like “um,” “wow,” and “mm-hmm” aren’t garbage, they keep conversations flowing.
Passing Notes
The speaker of a poem refuses linguistic erasure, passing secret notes with untranslated lines in Korean—keeping the language alive during Japanese occupation.
Professor Talking Points
- Linguistic anthropologists are well-positioned to consider the cycles of languages: how they are created, how they change over time in numerous ways, and how they die.
- There are an estimated 6,000 languages spoken around the world, and this diversity represents different ways of seeing the world, interacting, and talking about social interactions, the environment, food, politics, and complex abstract concepts about time, space, color, the divine, etc.
- Linguistic anthropologists have been vocal about the predicament in which humanity find itself: that many languages are at risk of extinction.
- The study of linguistics and culture helps make sense of why languages are threatened, allows for a deep appreciation of the power of languages and the diverse perspectives they produce, and permits all of us to consider what can be done to stop this process.
- Some linguistic anthropologists also track the struggles and successes of people who are working to resuscitate dying languages and highlight ways to support these processes.
Academic Articles
-
Limerick, Nicolas. 2018. “Attaining Multicultural Citizenship Through Indigenous-Language Instruction: Successful Kichwa Misfires and the Modeling of Modernist Language Ideologies in Ecuador.” Journal of Linguistic Anthropology 28 (3): 313–331.
-
Otheguy, Ricardo, Ofelia García, and Wallis Reid. 2015. “Clarifying Translanguaging and Deconstructing Named Languages: A Perspective From Linguistics.” Applied Linguistics Review 6 (3): 281–307.
Student Discussion Questions
- Discuss the beginnings of languages: Where do they come from? How are they created?
- Name some reasons why languages are at risk of extinction.
- Do you think that it is important to save languages? Do you think there are conditions under which some languages should not be saved?
- What does the 2017 SAPIENS article by Nicola Jones teach us about how language helps people understand the world?
- What is the Limerick (2018) article saying about language diversity and belonging? How does this message apply to the other readings?
Activities
- Have students watch the Hollywood film Arrival and discuss what it says about the nature of language.
Additional Resources
-
Article: SAPIENS’ “Why Are Languages Worth Preserving?”
-
TED Playlist: How Languages Change Over Time
Unit By
Eshe Lewis (2020)
Teaching
Linguistic Anthropology
-
Unit 3
Language and Gender
