Abstract
Since the second half of the twentieth century, post-colonial governments have commonly sought to revitalize the indigenous languages their imperialist predecessors hoped to eradicate. Although the impetus to revitalize is shared, the question of excluding or including the non-indigenous majority in the revitalization process, and encouraging them to become new speakers of the language, is a matter of politics and ideology. This paper draws on neotraditionalism and biculturalism as ideological premises in language revitalization policy to compare and contrast the nature and experiences of government policy in New Zealand and Norway as two such examples. In doing so, the paper sees neotraditionalism and biculturalism as ends of an ideological continuum that can plot policy frameworks and their changes. It finds, however, that neither has resulted in greater language revitalization and that both countries, and especially New Zealand, have flirted with a shift on the ideological continuum. Nonetheless, it appears that New Zealand's biculturalist approach has normalized the indigenous language to the extent its revitalization enjoys more support from the non-indigenous polity than in neotraditionalist Norway, where Sámi languages and policy are territorialized and invisible to most Norwegians.
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