International Journal of Heritage Studies

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Heritage languages and language as heritage: thelanguage of heritage in Canada and beyond
Jonathan Eaton & Mark Turin
To cite this article: Jonathan Eaton & Mark Turin (2022) Heritage languages and language as
heritage: the language of heritage in Canada and beyond, International Journal of Heritage Studies,
28:7, 787-802, DOI: 10.1080/13527258.2022.2077805
To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/13527258.2022.2077805

Published online: 16 May 2022.

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INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF HERITAGE STUDIES
2022, VOL. 28, NO. 7, 787–802
https://doi.org/10.1080/13527258.2022.2077805

Heritage languages and language as heritage: the language ofheritage in Canada and beyond
Jonathan Eatonaand Mark Turinba

Department of Anthropology, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada; bDepartment of
Anthropology and the Institute for Critical Indigenous Studies, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC,
CanadaABSTRACTARTICLE HISTORYThis article draws on recent discourses surrounding intangible cultural
heritage (ICH) and its relationship to language preservation, practice, andrevitalisation to propose that language be considered a form and practice of
heritage in and of itself, not merely a vehicle for the conveyance of ICH. As
such, language can serve as a bridge between the often-parallel tracks oftangible and intangible heritage, helping arrive at an understanding of
heritage that is broader, more nuanced, and more inclusive. Until now,
most scholars have resisted fully characterising language as heritage, view­ing ‘heritagisation’ as a threat to the vitality of language rather than embra­
cing language as a boon to the aliveness of heritage. In support of ourargument, we draw on examples from Latin America, Asia, and in particular
Canada to highlight specific historical and political discourses that deter­mine whose language counts as heritage and whose heritage counts moregenerally. While certain communities may derive some benefit from an
acknowledgement of their language as a form of heritage in service ofa language reclamation agenda, the field of heritage will benefit greatly
from inviting the vitality of language to enrich its many facets – discourse,
practice, materiality, and the interplay among these three.

Received 03 November 2021
Accepted 11 May 2022
KEYWORDS

Heritage; language; settler
colonialism; indigenous;
revitalisation; Canada

PrefaceThis article stems from discussions between the two authors, both of whom work at the Universityof British Columbia (UBC) in Vancouver, Canada. Eaton, a PhD student in Socio-Cultural
Anthropology, has a background in heritage studies, and Turin, an associate professor of
Anthropology and Critical Indigenous Studies, has a research focus on language. Both authors
are newcomers to Canada and were intrigued by the use of the term ‘heritage languages’ and its
place in the curriculum of our university. Paging (or, rather, clicking) through the most recent UBC
course catalogue1 reveals a very particular and contingent use of the word ‘heritage’. Our university
offers full, separate, and parallel learning tracks for ‘heritage’ and ‘non-heritage’ speakers of
Mandarin Chinese and Cantonese (both of which have large numbers of speakers in Vancouver).
Elsewhere in the catalogue, the course Persian Reading and Writing for Persian-Speaking Students
is ‘restricted to Persian heritage speakers with aural/oral knowledge but no reading/writing skills’,
indicating a specific conceptualisation of the skills that a heritage speaker of a language is expected
to possess. Conversely, a Persian Short Story course is offered for ‘native and heritage speakers’,

CONTACT Jonathan Eaton
eatonj@student.ubc.ca
NW Marine Drive, Vancouver, BC, V6T 1Z1, Canada© Jonathan Eaton and Mark Turin

Department of Anthropology, University of British Columbia, 6303

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J. EATON AND M. TURIN

indicating distinct forms of language proficiency between these two categories. At our university atleast, the term ‘heritage language’ evokes a certain set of relations, imaginings, attributions andproficiencies.
Just as telling as the course entries focusing on language instruction are those that mention
heritage but have no reference to language: an Anthropology course on Museums and Heritage anda Planning course on Urban Design. The only other course with ‘heritage’ in its description that is
not explicitly focussed on language instruction is one devoted to revitalising Indigenous languages.
According to its description, this course assesses how various ‘heritage resources’, including
libraries, archives, and museums ‘can contribute to endangered language and cultural heritage
sustainability’.
Looking at the various ways that ‘heritage’ is deployed in the course catalogue of our university,
we see a pattern emerging. When it comes to the languages of newcomers, settlers, and immigrants
to Canada, heritage refers to knowledge of an ancestral language that is essentially incomplete. In
relation to the languages spoken by Indigenous peoples, however, heritage refers to tools andtechniques that can aid preservation, revitalisation, and reclamation in the face of diminishment
and endangerment. Our cursory review of these course catalogue entries offers insights into how theterms heritage and language are used in relation to one another. This, in turn, has encouraged us to
explore further, both in the literature and through our fieldwork experiences, productive ways totheorise the connection between heritage and language.

Introduction
In this article, we suggest that the work of heritage – even within the emergent space of Critical
Heritage Studies (CHS) – would benefit from greater attention to language. As a spoken and signed
cultural practice unique to our species and as an embodied expression of individual and collective
belonging, language remains under-theorised within the broader landscape of heritage studies, andit deserves additional intellectual scrutiny and further analytical attention. To that end, we invite
critical consideration on the nature of the relationship between heritage and language.
Our inquiry addresses the following questions. First, we assess how language is perceived,
theorised, and mobilised within various heritage discourses. Second, we explore under what
conditions language can be considered ‘heritage’, and importantly, by whom and to what end.
While the term ‘heritage language’ is common in settler colonial states such as the United States
and Canada, this expression merely hints at an association with heritage that is broadly con­ceived. We understand the use of heritage language in such contexts to communicate highly
specific and coded meanings about imagined ancestral homelands and immigration status thatbears only a tangential relationship to the definition of heritage as understood by professionals
working in the field.
Through our comparative analysis of relevant examples, we identify a tendency: language isusually only considered to be a form of heritage when it is no longer spoken or used as the dominant
form of communication in a society (Turin 2014). In this contribution, we draw on studies from
Latin America, Asia, and in particular Canada to consider the place of language in the cultivation of
discourses of belonging. In Canada, as a case in point, while English and French receive generous
federal support and protection as co-official languages (Cardinal 2004), we explore what place
Indigenous languages hold in the national consciousness and whether official and officialising
heritage frameworks offer autochthonous languages any protection and resources.
Engaging with the extant literature on heritage and language, we parse out moments of inter­action and divergence between these two fields of academic inquiry and cultural practice. We
conclude by proposing that an understanding of language as heritage can both enrich and challenge
assumptions of how heritage functions; and we envision that the work of language revitalisation andreclamation may serve as a productive conduit between heritage as preservation and living heritage
as contemporary practice and use.

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Locating language in discourses of heritage
Situating language within heritage studies requires a particular frame of engagement with heritage
discourses – in particular, the relationship between heritage discourses and materiality. While
heritage discourses and practices have always involved – consciously or not – values-based
engagement with the past, recent theoretical developments in the field of heritage studies haveopened up new ways of understanding the relationship between language and heritage. In con­sidering heritage in relation to language, we engage with changing considerations of what consti­
tutes heritage. This includes both the generative concept of heritage discourses and one very
singular outcome of the practice of international heritage discourses: the categorisation of specificheritage elements as either tangible or intangible.
Over the past several decades, the discipline of heritage studies has shifted from an overwhelm­
ing focus on the preservation of the material fabric of human cultural expression towards anunderstanding of heritage as a discursive process (Smith 2006). This realignment has provided an
opening to consider heritage as not only something to be preserved, but as a meaning-making
process in and of itself that engages with the past, is mindful of the needs of the present, and at once
focused on the transmission of certain values into the future (Smith 2006; Harrison 2013). Earlier
conceptions of heritage as primarily invested in historical and material objects effectively foreclosed
the inclusion of language in the practice of heritage. Today’s appreciation of heritage as a form of
discourse invites us to consider how language and heritage may be intertwined. Making connections
between heritage and language has the potential to both benefit language revitalisation efforts andenrich heritage studies.
We find the conception of heritage as discourse – and particularly as an authorised discourse – tobe strongly suggestive of an intimate association with language. For Smith (2006, 11), an authorised
heritage discourse (AHD) is a hegemonic, institutionalised form of governance that relies heavily
on ‘expert knowledge’ to validate a particular set of practices and performances. In this way, the‘language’ of heritage – or, better, the language of the AHD – serves as a specialised professional
jargon for a cadre of heritage gatekeepers. In the international heritage field, the ‘authorising’ ofheritage discourses is dominated by literature written in English, French (the dual languages of
UNESCO and its ancillary organs), Italian, Spanish, and other European languages (Gentry andSmith 2019). It is worth noting that these languages are also the linguistic vehicles of European
colonialism and that heritage is only one of many discourses and ideologies which have been
deployed to impose worldviews on Indigenous and original inhabitants living in what are now
modern nation-states.
While the language of heritage discourses may be rooted – as ostensibly scientific language often
is – in hegemonic gatekeeping practices that promote certain worldviews over others, recent
directions in both heritage research and international heritage discourses point to a productive
opening for incorporating language itself as heritage. In positioning the field of Critical Heritage
Studies vis-à-vis the ‘heritage canon’, Gentry and Smith (2019) advocate for an active engagementwith heritage discourses and a critical analysis of heritage making. In so doing, they consider heritage
to be both politically engaged and culturally connected, and therefore inherently socially motivated.
We find this realignment exciting. Our contribution may be read as an extension of Gentry andSmith’s intervention in that we propose language be included in both the theory and practice of
heritage, enriching our understanding and challenging our assumptions of how heritage functions.
We envision that by positioning language within Critical Heritage Studies, it will become
possible to further decrease the gap that has emerged between tangible heritage (all things material,
such as historic buildings and objects) and intangible heritage (practices and knowledge, such as
dance, song, and storytelling). As Harrison and Rose (2010) note, the tangible-intangible dualism
can be problematic on account of its rootedness in other western dualisms (e.g. culture-nature,mind-matter) that assume human reason to be separate from and dominant over the material
world.

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We understand language to serve as a bridge between what can sometimes appear to be twosolitudes – the parallel tracks of tangible and intangible heritage – helping us to arrive at anunderstanding of heritage that is broader, more nuanced, and more inclusive. At the same time,
we acknowledge the value of expert practices of heritage – particularly at the state and supra-statelevel (Hølleland and Skrede 2019) – and we do not seek to minimise their lasting impact. In theseintergovernmental domains, distinctions between tangible and intangible heritage remainengrained and have long served important strategic purposes (cf. Turner and Tomer 2013).
Synthesising heritage and language: a review of recent literature
Given this rootedness, it is instructive to review how recent scholarship has positioned language
within established frameworks of heritage classification. Analysing the then-newly-adopted
UNESCO Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage, which mentions
language only once, Smeets (2004) concludes that ‘as a vehicle of the intangible cultural heritage[ICH]’ (UNESCO 2003, 2), language is integral to the safeguarding of ICH although not itself
a manifestation of it. This is an intriguing distinction, situating language less as an output, product,or end in itself but rather as a medium for the transmission of heritage.
Brief as it may be, the framing of language as a ‘vehicle’ of ICH within the 2003 Convention – aswell as the framing of ICH itself within the convention – has influenced subsequent studies that
explore the connections between heritage and language. Reviewing the transmission of ethnic
languages in Malacca, a World Heritage Site in Malaysia, Abu Bakar et al. (2014) conclude thatthe transmission of these languages does not strongly encourage or stimulate other ICH practices
overall. The authors point to a weak statistical association between ethnic language practices andestablished ICH practices as recognised by UNESCO, including Oral Tradition, Performing Arts,
Knowledge, Social Practices and Traditional Craftsmanship. Bakar et al. (2014, 219) also identify theunfavourable influence of ‘universal cultures’ which have served to dissuade younger generations aswell as individuals from higher socio-economic groups from practicing their local cultures.
The study by Bakar et al. helps to expose key differences between language and heritage, as wellas the ways that heritage and language push against limits inherent in international regimes ofclassification and tabulation. First, studies of ICH such as Bakar et al.’s that rely on UNESCO’s fixedcategories of recognition may not be granular enough to consider the interplay between materiality
and practice that exists in many expressions of heritage. As we argue below, thinking of language as
heritage presents an opportunity for spanning discourses of tangible and intangible heritage by
breathing new life into ‘preserved’ heritage objects. Second, agreeing with Bakar et al. 2014, we
identify a tension between the established World Heritage principle of ‘outstanding universal value’(our italics) and the necessarily very local and oftentimes territorial practices of both heritage andlanguage which can be directly threatened by the pressures exerted by universalising discourses
mobilised at national and international scales.
Other research in heritage studies that engages with language includes Ateca-Amestoy,
Gorostiaga, and Rossi 2020, in which the authors assess cultural heritage engagement in eighteen
Latin American countries. Through a survey of visits to historic sites and participation in commu­
nity celebrations, the authors explore, among other variables, whether speaking an Indigenous
language correlates with increased heritage participation. Their findings show that ‘there are larger
participation rates in intangible heritage-related activities, but below average participation in thecase of visits to heritage sites’ among people who speak an Indigenous language (Ateca-Amestoy,
Gorostiaga, and Rossi 2020, 408) and that ‘social capital and speaking an indigenous language arevariables related to higher probability of participating in community celebrations’ (416).
Ateca-Amestoy, Gorostiaga, and Rossi helpfully challenge the dominance of activities related totangible heritage (such as visits to monuments and historical sites) in studies measuring heritage
engagement. Yet, we propose that an association, perhaps even a correlation, between heritage site
visits and language retention may not reveal much about the relationship between heritage andINTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF HERITAGE STUDIES

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language. Inevitably, the outcomes of such a survey will be influenced by how heritage (especiallythe term ‘heritage site’) is defined by experts and researchers. Ateca-Amestoy, Gorostiaga, and Rossi
do not appear to question how the identification of specific sites as heritage (i.e. official designations
based on national and international AHDs) may influence who is interested in visiting a site, oreven to what extent they imagine that they belong there. What, for example, might we stand to learn
if we were to extend the definition of ‘heritage sites’ to include places where community celebrations
are held? How might the results of such a survey differ under those parameters? We suggest thatsuch research questions might offer insights into the ways in which the goals of speakers, languages
users, and cultural practitioners may at times be at odds with the values of heritage experts whochampion their practice.
In our analysis, case studies that consider language in relation to heritage often stop short ofacknowledging language as heritage. In the following section, we engage with literature that
addresses language as heritage and find that in instances where language is in fact considered
heritage, this often reflects poorly on the health of the language in question.

Considering language as heritage: what consequence?
We now turn to a deceptively simple question: when is language considered ‘heritage’, by whom,
and to what end? We have observed that in most mainstream discourses, language only becomes
heritage when it is perceived to be under threat of disappearance. By extension, we argue, when
language exists as a lived, vibrant, and embodied practice, the organising framework of heritageis generally thought to be less relevant. In such instances, even thinking about language as
heritage can be taken as a sign that competence, practice, and transmission are ebbing away,
moving from fluency towards diminishment, and in the process, inching towards heritage. The
positioning of language vis-à-vis heritage in the literature supports this disheartening
perception.
Smeets (2004, 161) discusses the loss of linguistic diversity as one reason for including language
within intangible cultural heritage, given that specific obligations regarding language preservation
have fallen directly to those states party to the 2003 UNESCO Convention. Bernini (2014) identifies
the threats posed to languages by linguistic imperialism, globalisation, and the growth of the nationstate, proposing the term ‘ecolinguistic capital’ to recognise the importance of connections between
language, people, and place. For Bernini (2014, 174), a recognition of language as intangible cultural
heritage is presupposed by discourses of ecolinguistic rights, which provide the basis for ecolin­
guistic capital and a means of countering language loss by de-emphasising a purely instrumentalist
approach to language. Without minimising the ongoing cultural oppression that many language
communities continue to face, we ask whether language can be considered heritage without
necessarily being considered at risk of loss?
We take issue with the suggestion that when language is understood to be a form heritage, itsomehow suggests a failure – either a disconnect between linguistic values and actual language
practice, or a perceived lack of cultural vitality. Aside from the problematic element of victim
shaming (Perley 2012) – as in, ‘you brought this upon yourself by not transmitting your language tothe next generation’ – those mobilising heritage discourses would be well served to attend more
carefully to why so many languages are endangered in the first place, and what the risk actuallyentails.
Across the world, Indigenous languages are under threat because of orchestrated efforts by statesto eliminate Indigenous people and silence their speech, what some scholars have referred to as
linguicide (Turin 2019b). Yet, while acts of violence to material culture, like the 2001 destruction of
the Buddhas of Bamiyan in Afghanistan, result in international outcry (United Nations 2001), thediminishment and destruction of many of the world’s languages is still regularly portrayed as an
unavoidable and inevitable consequence of processes of modernisation and globalisation.2 Instead,

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linguistic decline needs to be understood as the direct result of centuries of state-sponsored neglect
and the product of intentional policies aimed at the cultural assimilation and termination ofIndigenous peoples (Pine and Turin 2017).
The imminent threat to many Indigenous languages has a structural parallel in the under­
standings of heritage being ‘at risk’: the simple idea that heritage would not need defending if it was
not in danger. This logic and the language of ‘safeguarding’ has received sustained critique within
CHS (Harrison 2013; Rico 2015; Akagawa and Smith 2018; DeSilvey and Harrison 2020). Akagawa
and Smith (2018) note that while the 2003 UNESCO Convention mounts an important challenge toEurocentric, authorised heritage discourses, the Convention advances thinking that can at the verysame time undermine these efforts.
The choice of terminology offers a case in point. Using phrases such as ‘intangible value’ and‘tangible value’ can reassert ‘expert heritage values over community and other non-expert values’(Akagawa and Smith 2018, 2). Pushing ‘at risk’ thinking further still, Rodney Harrison (2013, 26–28) suggests that the concept of risk establishes conditions of heritage governmentality, where themanagement of risk requires increasingly bureaucratised and professionalised systems of heritage
governance. CHS helpfully challenges the preconception that when something is considered
heritage, it carries with it an implied threat of loss together with the case for professionalisedintervention in the form of conservation, protective legislation, and recognition.
When a language is flagged as ‘endangered’, a similar set of logics and responses are enacted tothose outlined above. First, there is the demotivating reality that the more at-risk a language is, themore urgent and compelling the appeals are for funding (Dobrin, Austin, and Nathan 2007). In this‘salvage’ logic, diminishment is rewarded with resources: the fewer speakers there are, the more
attention and funding a language community can expect to leverage. While the most severely
marginalised languages – when represented and packaged in ways that attract attention – can accessresources, and the least marginalised (such as international and colonial languages) have thebacking of formidable nation states, government-funded institutions, and academies that represent
their needs, Indigenous languages that are either not gasping for breath or simply less visible for any
number of reasons receive very little sustained support. Regrettably, then, endangered languages
need to be at once vital enough to warrant scholarly attention and yet fragile enough to berecognised and thereby access sustained funding.
In addition to the tension outlined above regarding fragility, visibility, and resourcing, the role ofarchives as powerful instruments of control and heritage making requires further investigation. The
growth in access to digital recording technology has meant that contemporary research initiatives
working with speakers of endangered languages are not only born digital, but often birthed directly
into an archive. At the same time, however, older collections of recordings made by earlier
generations of ethnographers and linguists are themselves ever more endangered, becoming
orphaned when their collectors die or fragmented into their component parts based on the mediumof documentation when they are finally deposited in an archive (Turin 2011). Major international
research programmes that are funded by philanthropic organisations in support of endangered
language documentation usually prioritise the creation of an ‘archive’ of the primary language data
as a central and measurable output. Grant-giving bodies often imagine that a language archive willwithstand the test of time, serving both the speech community whose voices and verbs have beenaccessioned and a wider societal goal of preserving and protecting records of human expressive
diversity for posterity.
While there is no doubt that archival studies are becoming more agile and responsive to theneeds of historically marginalised communities (Turin, Wheeler, and Wilkinson 2013), archives
remain sites of imperial control, cultural hegemony, and structural violence that can contribute to
heritage being perceived as frozen, ossified, or unbendingly rigid (Stoler 2002, 2009). The goals of
linguists and archivists are not necessarily orthogonal to those of language speakers and community
members, but the archiving imperative baked into the rubrics and expectations of many contem­
porary research projects raises complex questions around power, ownership, control, access, andINTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF HERITAGE STUDIES

793

possession (Turin 2019a). In addition, certain traditional archival beliefs and practices can work toentrench unwelcome oppositions between different stakeholders who may have very different
expectations in term of visibility and access.
As with language, identifying certain heritage resources as endangered can be an effective
strategy to secure political and financial support for their preservation. Unlike languages,
however, ‘successfully preserved’ heritage assets often receive high levels of funding and atten­
tion. This may be because they are understood to be beneficial to the tourism economy (Garrod
and Fyall 2000) and/or particularly ‘charismatic’ and therefore suitable for strategic deployment
by governments looking to promote a national brand (Ahn and Wu 2015), even if the outcome
may be a certain degree of exotification (MacCarthy 2020). National political entities don’t
commonly have the strongest track record of uplifting Indigenous cultures and languages unlessthese can be effectively commodified (Comaroff and Comaroff 2009). Assertions of linguistic
sovereignty and self-determination have a subversive elasticity that renders them not only lessconducive to state-driven narratives, but also more problematic for nation building projects,
introducing multiplicity in situations where governments often seek clarity through unity (Meek
2017).3
The number of contemporary media reports, films, and podcasts that focus on ‘saving’endangered or ‘disappearing’ languages reflects an apparently insatiable public appetite forwhat was until recently a less visible undertaking: language documentation, conservation, andrevitalisation. While for some the public interest and mainstreaming have been welcome, offeringboth an infusion of funding and a timely platform to talk about the challenges facing minoritizedlanguages the world over, others are drawing attention to the more problematic aspects oflanguage as ‘commodity’ that have ensued from this increased visibility. The interest andinvestment of large philanthropic organisations (Arcadia Fund and the Volkswagen
Foundation, in particular) and tech giants such as Google in endangered language work has
reinforced a sense that the resources directed at projects in the global south are helping to build
careers, collections, and prestige in the global north.
A further point of intersection between language work and heritage studies is the domain ofidentity formation through enactments of belonging. Language and identity form a fully developedarea of scholarly interest (cf. McCarty et al. 2009; Baloy 2011; McCarty 2014; Chew, Greendeer, andKeliiaa 2015; Davis 2016), mirroring the strong association that exists in research on heritage andidentity (cf. McLean 2006; Crang and Tolia-Kelly 2010; Russell 2010; Ashworth 2014; Gibson 2017).
As Smith notes, echoing what anthropologists have long asserted about the construction of
linguistic identities:
Identity is not simply something ‘produced’ or represented by heritage places or heritage moments, but issomething actively and continually recreated and negotiated as people, communities and institutions reinterpret,
remember and reassess the meaning of the past in terms of the social, cultural and political needs of the present.
It is thus simultaneously about change and continuity; it is a mentality or discourse in which certain realities andideas of ‘being’ are constituted, rehearsed, contested and negotiated and ultimately remade. (2006, 83)

We see very similar logics playing out in the domain of language. For example, the first phase of the
Linguistic Survey of Sikkim – India’s second smallest and least populous state – conducted in 2005–
2006, sought to uncover some of the complexities around understandings of identity and belonging
among school-going children. One of the more unexpected findings of the survey was that moreyoung people identified the autochthonous and Indigenous languages of Sikkim as their mothertongue than there were students who identified as actually speaking these same languages. Thisapparent anomaly can be understood as an expression of an emotional connection to an ancestral
heritage, to an ethnic identity, and to a sense of linguistic belonging (Turin 2014, 386). The
Linguistic Survey of Sikkim was helpful in uncovering specific patterns of language shift and in
identifying how an individual’s linguistic heritage can serve as a convenient proxy for ethnicity,

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J. EATON AND M. TURIN

helping to cultivate a sense of attachment. In addition, the project helped to illustrate how linguistic
identities can challenge hegemonic narratives about how and where language communities situatethemselves within nation-states.
Language identities, like heritage identities, are constantly being negotiated in relation to the needsof the present, to understandings of the past and in anticipation of an imagined future. As the studies
outlined above demonstrate, both language and heritage are inextricably tied to processes of identitymaking, meaning-making, and belonging, though not always in ways that are immediately apparent.
Moreover, heritage and language not only exhibit shared characteristics and parallel discourses but
are explicitly linked together through instances when language is considered to be heritage. In thesections that follow, we draw on examples from Canada to highlight specific historical and con­temporary discourses that determine whose language counts as heritage and whose heritage counts.

When and why language is considered heritage: the curious case of Canada
In 2009, Canada’s then Commissioner of Official Languages Graham Fraser was quoted as saying:‘[I]n the same way that race is at the core of . . . American experience and class is at the core of
British experience, I think that language is at the core of Canadian experience’. Canada is inter­nationally celebrated for its official commitment to bilingualism at the federal level – providing
resources and support to two European settler languages, English and French, neither of which wereoriginally from the territory that is now Canada and both of which have homelands where thelanguages are thriving. In this rather paradoxical state-sponsored recognition lies a tension: Canada
is home to rich multilingualism (Werker et al. 2021), thanks not only to the hundreds of Indigenous
languages spoken in what today constitutes Canada, but on account of the in-migration of people
from around the world who have carried their languages with them as they have settled and madeCanada their new home.
At a structural and symbolic level, the national ministerial portfolio in which heritage andlanguage are located reveals something of the official perceptions and governance models of bothfields. Since 2006, the Canadian federal government has entrusted the implementation of its language
policies – for both of its two official languages and for Indigenous languages – to the Heritage
Ministry. As of April 2022, the Office of the Commissioner of Official Languages notes on its website
that, ‘Canadian Heritage is responsible for coordinating the implementation of Part VII of the Official
Languages Act [which] pertains in particular to the federal government’s commitment to enhance thevitality of English and French minority communities and support their development’.4 In addition to
Canada’s two official languages, programmes for Indigenous languages also fall under the purview of
the Heritage Ministry, meaning to say that all of the federal government’s language-related activities
are subsumed within the expansive portfolio of Canadian Heritage.
At the provincial and local levels, Canada invests substantially in supporting heritage languages,
a term that refers to all languages other than Indigenous languages and the two official languages(Cummins 1992) – in other words, those languages that fall outside the portfolio of the Heritage
Ministry. Heritage language programmes in Canada include such diverse offerings as Cantonese,
German, Hebrew, Italian, Korean, Mandarin, Portuguese, Punjabi, Spanish, Tamil, Ukrainian,Urdu, and dozens of other languages spoken by immigrant communities (Nagy 2021). Duff andLi (2009, 4) outline how ‘Canada has long been a leader in developing pro-active policies andinitiatives to support minority and heritage language instruction and maintenance’. Despite theexistence of similar language learning initiatives in the United Kingdom, Australia, and the UnitedStates that are identified using other descriptors, such as community, complementary, ancestral,
ethnic, or immigrant (Duff and Li 2009, 4), the term ‘heritage language education’ seems to haveoriginated with Canadian programmes (Baker 2001).
The designation ‘heritage language’ speaks to a relationship between heritage and language thatis at once specific and yet also curiously unspecified. While the working definition varies by national
and institutional context (cf. Polinsky and Kagan 2007; Leeman 2015; Nagy 2021), heritageINTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF HERITAGE STUDIES

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languages in the Canadian setting appear to have the following characteristics. First, they are orwere originally spoken somewhere else, in a location other than where they are currently spoken.
Second, they were brought to their current location through the migration and settlement of theirspeakers. Third, the term ‘heritage language’ invokes ancestry and historical origin, not nationality
or political allegiance, and is therefore unthreatening to the integrity of the nation state in whichsuch languages are now spoken. Fourth, the term is intentionally agnostic about contemporary
spoken ability, not discerning between speakers and ‘rememberers’ (Grenoble and Whaley 2005).
Individuals are thus free to invoke a connection with a heritage language simply through identifica­tion with the cultural community of origin, without having to demonstrate any specific level ofcompetence. Finally, and perhaps most tellingly, a diagnostic feature of a heritage language is thatfluency is an ideal that is generally maintained elsewhere. The linguistic homeland is usually the siteof the imagined and ideal fluency, and this is necessarily located outside the country of current
settlement.
This heavily loaded definition and the understandings that it encodes are epistemologically andemotionally important for at least two reasons. First, unlike Indigenous languages which are bydefinition from the territory where they are spoken and have no other homeland to invoke or returnto, heritage languages have a ‘motherland’ located elsewhere, where ‘mother tongue’ speakers areoften assumed to preserve the original, authentic language with the richest cultural expression.
Second, and again unlike Indigenous languages, should one’s descendants eventually cease to use,
understand, and speak their heritage language, individuals will be able to draw on the existence andcultural assets of the linguistic homeland through strategies such as immersive language learning
opportunities, summer camps, and homestays with relatives.
The existence of an external site of imagined fluency offers settlers and migrants the freedom torelinquish their language, moving it from the domain of active use to serve as an element of theirpersonal heritage. While it is important for the community as a whole that the language continue tobe spoken, individuals need not assume personal responsibility for its continuance. The very idea ofheritage languages thus comprises an imagined language community that includes both native
speakers and non-speakers, tied together by common ancestral identity and ethno-national
exchanges. Through increased fluency in the heritage language, learners can begin to access andconcretise this imagined community (Leeman 2015). At the same time, the idea that certain
languages function or stand as heritage allows even a non-fluent speaker to feel a sense of belonging
to a larger ethno-linguistic community.
How, then, should we make sense of the heritage element in the phrase ‘heritage languages’? And
why do institutions consider only those languages brought to Canada by non-English or French
speaking immigrants to be heritage? These questions inevitably lead us to consider the status ofIndigenous languages in Canada, languages that have been spoken and sung for thousands of years
on these lands before the establishment of the colonial state. Indigenous languages have been
accorded neither federal status as official languages, nor can they draw on the resources extended toheritage language communities (Cummins and Danesi 1990; Balan 2022).
Only two territories in Canada accord official status to Indigenous languages: Nunavut and theNorthwest Territories. In Nunavut, both Inuktitut and Inuinnaqtun have official status alongside
English and French, and Inuktitut is commonly used in the administration of territorial
government.5 The Official Languages Act of the Northwest Territories goes further still, recognis­
ing eleven languages – Chipewyan, Cree, English, French, Gwich’in, Inuinnaqtun, Inuktitut,
Inuvialuktun, North Slavey, South Slavey and Tłįchǫ.6 Official recognition of Indigenous lan­
guages can serve to reduce the sense that they are ‘under threat’ while at the same time mobilisingsimilar resources that are available for speakers of settler languages. Yet, official recognition may
also result in increased bureaucratisation as a by-product – for example, enshrining the dubious
privilege of completing a tax return in one’s own Indigenous language – without necessarily
driving forward the broader goals of language revitalisation and reclamation that generate new
speakers.

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Within the Canadian context, then, conceiving of some speech forms as ‘heritage languages’
or granting official status to individual languages within specific territories can result ina hierarchy of language rights, steeped in political discourses of heritage, constitutional
entitlements, and the Canadian trope of multiculturalism. The same language can be officiallyrecognised in one location but not in another, contingent on the governmental framework ofeach site. In some instances, being considered a ‘heritage language’ might indicate that there isa thriving community of speakers; in others, it rather serves to denote that a language is under
threat. This awareness is not the same as recognising all languages as heritage, which leads us
to ask precisely that: what would it mean for all languages – official, Indigenous, and settler –to be considered heritage? In the following section, we argue that doing so would open up
productive opportunities for language revitalisation and for recognising other forms of living
heritage.

Opening up heritage
Broadening the conception of language as heritage beyond the narrow confines of ‘heritage
languages’ or the instrumental ‘language as a vehicle for ICH’ may result in fruitful openings forboth heritage and language discourses and practices. ‘Language as heritage’ can enrich the field of
heritage studies by revealing connections between language and other manifestations of heritage
while highlighting the ways in which heritage itself is increasingly understood to be a living anddynamic human practice.
Olga Bialostocka presents one of the strongest arguments for fully considering language as
intangible cultural heritage and not merely as a vehicle for ICH. Citing Smeets 2004, Bialostocka(2017, 19) argues that language itself fulfils all the traits of ICH found in the 2003 UNESCO
Convention: ‘it is transmitted from generation to generation; constantly recreated; speech can betreated as linguistic practice and expressions; language bestows identity upon people in the same
way that social practices, rituals or indigenous knowledge do’. At the same time, Bialostocka warns
against the essentialisation of culture that can occur when international instruments work tosafeguard languages as artefacts, adding: ‘the preoccupation of international regulations andcultural heritage protectors should be with the people rather than their product’ (23). We welcome
this important distinction between considering language-as-heritage according to Eurocentric
norms of preservation and risk, and language-as-heritage in its own right as living and dynamic,
and therefore not only representing cultural knowledge but actively working to shape cultural
practice.
And yet, contemporary literature connecting intangible heritage to language all too often
defaults to an instrumentalist approach. In their recent article on the intangible cultural heritageof immigrant and refugee communities, Giglitto, Ciolfi, and Bosswick (2022) discuss many waysthat ICH can help bridge the cultural gap and facilitate dialogue between immigrants and hostcommunities. However, nowhere in this analysis are immigrants’ languages considered as a partof their ICH. Rather, language is presented as a barrier to or a facilitator of immigrants’ entry intothe ‘host society’ (Giglitto, Ciolfi, and Bosswick 2022, 11). If, instead, language was to berecognised as a part of ICH, then ICH could be understood not only as something carriedforward (like baggage) but also as an integral aspect of an individual’s everyday life andworldview.
Immigrants live a blend of language experiences as part of their encounter with their hostcountry, and in so doing are constantly mixing and negotiating experiences of cultural heritage. By
recasting language as heritage in and of itself, a heritage language can represent not only a distanthomeland and an associated ancestral past but also serve as a means of negotiating cross-cultural
belonging in the present. Inverting the frame from heritage language to language-as-heritage canwork to encompass more fully the richness and depth of immigrants’ blended heritage,a constituent element of which is language.

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While supporting the proposal that language be considered an aspect of intangible cultural
heritage, we advocate going further, suggesting that language-as-heritage benefits the heritage
field more broadly. Numerous studies have tied language, especially Indigenous languages, toa sense of place, particularly in settler colonial contexts. Place is also a key consideration for
heritage, particularly for landscapes. Baloy (2011) discusses the importance of ‘placing lan­
guage’, Chew, Greendeer, and Keliiaa (2015) contend that studying language only in formal
educational settings misses out on the richness of emplaced cultural learning, and Gibson(2017) highlights the interconnectedness of the social and physical landscapes of the
Stl’atl’imx people, which are tied together through language, tradition, and relationships.7
Toponyms are central to linguistic placemaking and increasingly employed in traditional use
studies, in which Indigenous peoples living in what is now Canada mobilise their uninterrupted
presence on the land to assert territorial sovereignty through the documentation of the ancientnaming of a landscape.
In addition to being a medium for inherited oral and textual literary works, language
embodies cultural knowledge and ethical protocols, including complex histories, epistemologies,
and legal traditions that enact heritage through practice. As Martindale, Shneiderman and Turinwrite:
Cultural communities share a tacit understanding of what things mean, an understanding that emerges fromsharing lifetimes of experience and memory. [. . .] Where storytelling conveys the conscious understanding of
cultural knowledge, performance captures the experiences that transmit the less conscious frameworks ofknowledge upon which conscious understanding is built. (2018, 201)

In the dance between ‘telling’ and ‘doing’ heritage, language transmits cultural knowledge from thepast to the future through the present, not as a passive vehicle for ‘cultural data’ but throughculturally specific forms of meaning making. Precisely because it is ever-changing, contextuallyspecific, and alive in the present – thereby resisting comprehensive archiving and preservation –language functions as a form of heritage in and of itself, not only as a supporting mechanism for thetransmission of other forms of heritage. In fact, construed in this way, language-as-heritage can help
counter homogenising notions of the universality of heritage (De Cesari 2010) that have to dateserved to privilege European norms and Western values. Heritage discourses inevitably involve actsof translation; considering language to be an integral part of heritage makes the process oftranslation and any attending inadequacies more visible.
Considering all language to be heritage may even have implications for decolonial work and thepromotion of Indigenous language rights, both in Canada and globally. In their critical analysis ofheritage governance, Grey and Kuokannen (2020) discuss how models of ‘co-management’ ofIndigenous cultural heritage tend to subvert complex political-legal orders in favour of ones that
promote material culture. While their article touches only lightly on language, Indigenous lan­
guages have the potential to be central to arguments that Indigenous heritage governance requires
recognition of Indigenous peoples’ own regimes of rights, customs, laws, and obligations.
Recognising language as heritage offers an additional structure to dislodge the dominance ofmaterial culture in heritage discourses.
Others have shown how language revitalisation paves the way for cultural revitalisation more
broadly alongside the re-enlivening of heritage practices. To quote Ryan DeCaire, AssistantProfessor of Indigenous Languages at the University of Toronto and a teacher of Kanien’kéha,
the Mohawk language: ‘People revitalize a language, but language revitalizes a people. When you
speak your language, you are more likely to feel self-confident . . . You’re much more likely to havea sense of understanding of who you are . . . and a sense of understanding and responsibility within
a community’ (Srikanth 2020). This supports the mutually reinforcing correlation identified byresearchers working in British Columbia between cultural continuity, language, and the health andwellbeing of marginalised communities (Hallett, Chandler, and Lalonde 2007; McIvor, Napoleon,
and Dickie 2009).

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In considering language to be heritage, language reclamation (as opposed to merely
preservation) can serve as a model for analogous efforts towards the revitalisation of cultural
heritage. This, in turn, has the potential to generate a more holistic response to the cultural
genocide of colonialism (MacDonald 2015). Such an approach would reinforce a beneficial
focus on the social value of heritage, i.e. an understanding of heritage as living and changing,rather than ossified and frozen. Mobilising the inherent dynamism of language, and conceiv­
ing of language as heritage, helps to ground heritage practice in people’s cultural rights to live
and transform their heritage through its enactment and embodiment, and thus move awayfrom perceptions and structures of fixity.

Conclusion: Recentring Language
Objects and ideas only become heritage through the manner in which we interact with themin the present. In this contribution, we have aimed to demonstrate how language is generally
only considered to be heritage when it is translocated – through migration and settlement –or no longer spoken. It seems reasonable then to ask whether the ultimate goal of a speechcommunity – Indigenous or historically marginalised communities in particular – would be to
avoid the heritagisation of their language at all costs? In other words, if one’s language has
been identified as a heritage language, does that either consign it to the past or locate it ina distant ancestral land? We see productive opportunities for an inversion of this unfortunate
teleology by considering language to be an integral part of heritage, countering the notion thata language must be either ‘endangered’ or ‘imported’ to be considered heritage.
In the work of heritage conservation to date, more focus is trained on the heritage resource
itself than on those who use or appreciate it. Likewise, the logics of language preservation are
more often in service of the language than of the needs of speakers – objectifying and evencommodifying language through documentation, archiving, and standardisation (Deumert andStorch 2018). Any recognition of language as heritage must carefully avoid ossifying language
as an object to be preserved and protected irrespective of the needs and goals of its speakers.
Deumert and Storch (2018) argue that the ‘heritagisation’ of language will have to circumventthe coercive and problematic logic of language-as-archive that reinscribes control into the
future over the marginalised voices of the present. In this manner, language-as-heritage invites
us to consider more lively ways of conceiving of heritage. As Deumert and Storch write, ‘If wewish to understand language as heritage more fully, we need to look beyond language archives
and towards the everyday practices of people’ (2018, 103). We propose the extension of thisunderstanding to heritage as a whole, through the appreciation and enactment of everyday
practice.
Languages flourish in relation – among people, and in relation to places, cultures, andpractices. Languages thrive within a dynamic and vibrant present, the very dynamism thatcertain aspects of professional heritage practice – such as conservation – have traditionallyresisted. In sum, we propose that a conceptualisation of language-as-heritage can benefit bothlanguage and heritage, especially the latter. While language communities may derive somebenefit from an acknowledgement of their spoken language as a form of heritage, the field of
heritage will be considerably strengthened by inviting the vitality of language to enrich all its
facets – discourse, practice, materiality, and the interplay among these three. Just as all living
heritage practices should be and are always changing, so too language is inescapably fluid.
Language as heritage serves as both method and illustration of the inherent vitality of heritage
as a lived and embodied practice.

Notes
1. See https://courses.students.ubc.ca/cs/courseschedule (UBC Course Schedule).

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2. As Davis (2017) has argued, the rhetoric of Indigenous language endangerment remains rooted in the persistentcolonial trope that Indigenous peoples and cultures are vanishing, thus justifying extractive processes of salvage
linguistics and paternalistic scholarship. Similar ideologies of endangerment and salvage were used to fillmuseum collections with the belongings of so-called ‘vanishing’ Indigenous communities (Brown 2014).
3. Benedict Anderson (2006, 67) recognised the development of a single ‘national print language’ as being ofcentral ideological and political importance to the consolidation of nation-states, and many national anthems
and most citizenship processes focus intently on the affective and performative power of competence in thenational, official language(s).
4. See https://www.clo-ocol.gc.ca/en/aboutus/mandate (Office of the Commissioner of Official Languages), as
well as https://www.canada.ca/en/canadian-heritage.html (Canadian Heritage).
5. See https://www.gov.nu.ca/culture-and-heritage/information/official-languages and note also that adminis­
tration of official languages in Nunavut falls under the purview of the Department of Culture and Heritage.
6. See https://olc-nt.ca/languages/overview/ (Office of the Languages Commissioner of the Northwest
Territories).
7. The Stl’atl’imx (or, St’át’imc) people reside within the boundaries of what is today known as British Columbia,
in Western Canada. Importantly, they describe their own territory geographically, rather than in relation to
the colonial state. According to the website of the St’át’imc government (https://statimc.ca/about-us/), ‘theSt’át’imc are the original inhabitants of the territory which extends north to Church Creek and to South
French Bar; northwest to the headwaters of Bridge River; north and east towards Hat Creek Valley; east to the
Big Slide; south to the Island on Harrison Lake and west of the Fraser River to the headwaters of Lillooet River,
Ryan River and Black Tusk.’

Acknowledgments
The authors would like to thank the Heritage Research Centre at Cambridge University for inviting Turin to delivera lecture on this topic several years ago, sparking the authors’ first conversations and leading to the development of
this contribution. We are also grateful to Sara Shneiderman and Kailey Rocker for their insightful comments on earlydrafts of this article, and particularly to the two anonymous peer reviewers for IJHS whose specific recommendations
and constructive criticism have significantly strengthened this paper. Any remaining errors are the authors’ own.

Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Funding
This work was supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada [Vanier Canada
Graduate Scholarship] and the Peter Wall Institute for Advanced Studies at the University of British Columbia.

Notes on contributors
Jonathan Eaton is a PhD candidate in Anthropology at the University of British Columbia with a focus on heritage,
the anthropology of space and place, and the anthropology of disaster. In his current work, he is seeking tounderstand the affective connections among people, heritage, and hazards within the multilayered temporalities ofdisaster planning in Vancouver, Canada. His past experience as a Fulbright scholar and heritage practitioner in
Albania with the organisation Cultural Heritage without Borders taught him to appreciate the importance ofeveryday moments connecting people and place.
Mark Turin is an Associate Professor at the University of British Columbia cross-appointed between the Institute for
Critical Indigenous Studies and the Department of Anthropology. He directs the Digital Himalaya Project which heco-founded in 2000 as a platform to make contemporary and historical multi-media resources from the Himalayan
region widely available online. For over twenty years, Turin’s regional focus has been the Himalayan region(particularly Nepal, northern India and Bhutan), and more recently, the Canadian Pacific Northwest. Turin writes
about language reclamation, revitalisation, documentation and conservation; language mapping, policies, politics andlanguage rights; orality, archives, digital tools and technology. He is the author or co-author of four books, three
travel guides, the editor of 12 volumes, and he edits a series on oral literature.

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ORCID
Jonathan Eaton
http://orcid.org/0000-0001-8681-4707
Mark Turin
http://orcid.org/0000-0002-2262-0986

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