The first three papers in this volume of Language Documentation and Description originated at a workshop held in February 2011 at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London on the subject of ‘Endangered Languages, Endangered Knowledge and Sustainability’. There is an increasing body of opinion that a language cannot be maintained in a discrete manner, without attention to its context: i.e. both its linguistic ecology (the languages it is in contact with) and its ecology in a wider sense: the speaker community, its domains of use, its vitality, attitudes towards it and other languages, and the physical environment. Likewise, Mühlhäusler (2000) claims that linguistic diversity is a precondition for maintaining cultural and biological diversity. The rationale for this workshop was situated in what is often called an ‘ecological’ approach to language planning and endangered languages, which is explored by Lenore Grenoble in her contribution to this volume, as well as in her chapter in Austin and Sallabank(2011:27-44). In this approach, the sustainability of languages is inseparable from the sustainability of the communities that use them, linking language with wider issues such as environmental sustainability, economic and social conditions, and sustainable development.

Language Documentation and Description, Vol. 9 (2011)