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

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.