Today many languages are in danger of disappearing from the face of the earth (Nettle, 2000). Due to the increasing power of a small number of languages spoken by large groups with social prestige or control of economic resources, “smaller” languages are vanishing at a rapid rate. Crystal (2000) estimates that only 600 of the 6,000+ languages in the world will survive the threat of extinction. Language death detaches people from their cultural heritage and leads to loss of community identity. The dominant culture is also deprived of the diversity that is the foundation of human cultural creativity, knowledge, and change (Dalby, 2003; Harrison, 2007).

Fortunately, linguists, anthropologists, sociologists, folklorists, indigenous leaders, and others are rising to the challenge and fomenting projects to reverse language decline (Hinton & Hale, 2001). There are projects all around the world dedicated to raising language awareness in endangered speech communities, documenting languages that are on the verge of disappearing, facilitating language reacquisition and revival, and supporting local efforts to establish bilingual programs, literacy programs, and other forms of language rescue.

Romanitas is a multilingual, peer-reviewed, online academic journal based at the University of Puerto Rico. It is dedicated to the study of Romance languages, literatures, and cultures. Its April 2010 special issue (which will also be published in traditional printed format) seeks to collect articles reporting on language preservation and revival projects in speech communities where a Romance language is a factor (e.g., South America, Central America, North America, the Caribbean, Europe, the Philippines, North Africa, etc.). The language that is being rescued may be a Romance variety or an indigenous language that is threatened by a hegemonic Romance language.

Articles should be written in Spanish, French, Portuguese or English. Please send contributions (no more than 30 pages including bibliography and appendices) in electronic form to Dr. Alicia Pousada (English Department, UPR, Río Piedras) at: pousada.a@gmail.com. Manuscripts should include an abstract in the language of the article plus another in one of the other languages of publication. Authors should follow the Romanitas style protocol which can be found at: http://humanidades.uprrp.edu/romanitas/english/style.html . The deadline for submission is: November 30, 2009.

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Crystal, D. (2000). Language Death. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Dalby, A. (2003). Language in danger: The loss of linguistic diversity and the threat to our future. New York: Columbia University Press.

Harrison, K. D. (2007) When languages die: The extinction of the world's languages and the erosion of human knowledge. New York and London: Oxford University Press.

Hinton, L. & Hale, K. (Eds.). (2001). The green book of language revitalization in practice. San Diego: Academic Press.

Nettle, D. & Romaine, S. (2000). Vanishing voices: The extinction of the world's languages. Oxford: Oxford University Press.