Multilinguality, vitality, and endangerment: Insights from the Lived Experiences of Multilingual India By R. KarthickNarayanan, London: Cambridge Scholars Publishing. 2025. 180pp.

In a place where societal multilingualism is part and parcel of the linguistic history, how does one go about assessing language vitality? In daily life, many people use more than one language, dialect or register depending upon the social setting, present and past. This includes all forms of code switching and code mixing, as well as well as complex processes of decision making in language choice. In Multilinguality, Vitality, and Endangerment, Karthick Narayanan applies these basic facts of linguistic diversity in India to question notions of language endangerment, challenging the fundamental logic upon which the major methods of language vitality/endangerment assessment are based. His central argument, that these methods are based on a Eurocentric idea of language use within an environment of monolingualism, is a welcome call for more field-based investigation of how languages coexist in local settings. Narayanan argues that “patterns of multilingual language use, such as those widely observed in India, must not be confused with language shift or endangerment” (32). These arguments are draw on a thoughtful unpacking of the various methods of assessment that have been employed, such as UNESCO's Language Vitality and Endangerment framework, which is based on Fishman's Graded Intergenerational Disruption Scale (GIDS), Krauss's classification system, and Lee and Way's Language Endangerment Index. Still, amidst the dynamic milieux of unbalanced multilingualism lived in India, real language shift does exist, so Narayanan triangulates his theoretical discussion with a field-based look at the Toda and Kota languages spoken in the Nilgiri Hills of Tamil Nadu. To operationalize this concern for the actual dynamics of language use, he employs Einar Haugen's notion of language ecology, concluding that an approach grounded in language ecology “moves beyond simplistic assessments of language vitality, instead focusing on structural inequalities, speaker agency, and broader socioeconomic influences” (151). India has contributed much to our understanding of language contact, providing many windows on multilingualism. Narayanan traces this history through a brief review of such historical storylines as the influence of Munda languages on the Sanskrit Vedas and introduces important aspects of multilingualism in contemporary India. Missing from this contextualization are important works on the areal linguistics of India. Although areal linguistics is not an explicit focus of Narayanan's work, the salience of these areal dynamics becomes clear when he introduces the linguistic ecology in which Toda and Kota are spoken in close proximity. This seems particularly important when considering that Narayanan's contribution features the contact dynamics of small, marginalized linguistic groups that are oral cultures. The linguistic ecology framing allows Narayanan to highlight the relationship between the Kota and Toda, and the distinct trajectories they are on, in the complex landscapes in which they are spoken. Historically, clear hierarchy between the two languages placed Toda in higher position. For example, Kota musicians had to perform at Toda funerals. However, the stratified and ritualized relationship prevented widespread Kota-Toda bilingualism, with communication mediated through Badugu. Kota also had formalized relationship with speakers of Badugu, which was based on the exchange of grain and implements. By the beginning of 20th century, these social structures had worn away, but the social and linguistic dynamics had already set the foundations for the next period of linguistic-cultural change. Having undergone a cultural transformation coming out of the colonial period, the previously subordinated Kota language now thrives as the language of the Kota people, even as it loses some aspects of traditional knowledge that were formerly encoded in the language. Kota has universal fluency in Tamil and Badugu, while some people claim competence in Kannada. These provide evidence of the linguistic attitudes that Kota people expressed to Narayanan—that they value multilingualism as part of their identity. As one interlocutor stated, “Kota learned at birth that we should never speak in another tongue with our fellow community members” (106). Narayanan shows that the situation of Toda is very different. People reported a commonly held stigma of code mixing, yet the phenomenon is commonly observed. There is universal bilingualism with Tamil, but the Toda language is undergoing attrition. Speakers described to Narayanan the increasingly “fuzzy borders” between Toda and Tamil. Narayanan's fieldwork highlights crucial aspects of language use as expressed by the speakers. For instance, Toda speakers insisted that they are no longer unable to crack a joke in Toda. This goes hand in hand with more familiar sentiments about how speaking Tamil reflects moving into more civilized social space. A post-colonial shift from pastoralism to agriculture brought speakers of Toda within the world of labor, and closer to Tamil farmers. Gendered language use has also been central to linguistic change. Typically, men were named from Toda ritual language, while women received their names from daily language. Women were restricted from most aspects of religious practice, and this has meant that they have been the first to convert to Christianity. These catalyzed preference for speaking Tamil among women, driving language shift in both domestic and broader community spaces. Narayanan's attention to such language use domains as song, humor and religion are excellent facets of vitality that should be given full consideration in language assessment. Narayanan tells the stories of Toda and Kota linguistic change in terms of language attitudes and domains of use linked to socioeconomic history and ecological transformation. While these insights are fascinating, the book ultimately proves frustrating because the ethnographic detail is rather minimal. Narayanan's prose preserves the “interview” approach to his sociolinguistic methods, and thus we learn about Toda and Kota linguistic lives primarily through statements made by informants to the researcher. Long quotes of Tamil text from the interviews do little to help the reader appreciate the points. The analysis does include interesting references to locally articulated linguistic “ideologies,” but these are largely descriptive. A deeper engagement with linguistic ideology and other concepts from the linguistic anthropology literature would have made the field anecdotes more compelling, providing additional depth to Narayanan's efforts to highlight speakers' attitudes towards their languages. For example, Narayanan makes the extremely important point that current assessment methods carry a graphocentric bias, and a more rigorous analysis of the exclusively oral language use in the Toda and Kota contexts of speakers' ideological motivations could have elucidated more clearly what exactly is lost when orality is not at the center of the vitality assessment framework. The book concludes with a return to the assessment methods, reflecting insights from the Kota-Toda situation. Narayanan proposes seven “vitals”—elements of language vitality that emerge from the linguistic ecology view on Toda-Kota situation—for consideration in frameworks for assessing language vitality: intergenerational transmission, domain transparency, perseverance of language structures, perseverance of orality, cohesiveness of socioeconomic conditions, institutional support and the state's attitude towards linguistic diversity, and community members' attitudes towards their language. Narayanan proposes that engaged fieldwork that goes beyond simple quantitative methods is necessary and calls for more collaborative processes that bring together researchers, government and communities. The practicalities of how this could be done are not explored in detail, but one would expect that this requires a long-term commitment to assessment that mobilizes technical, political and financial resources in a fundamentally different way. The issues at the core of this book are very important, and Narayanan has provided a foundation for further questioning. The overall structure of the book works well, but the flow and organization of information and arguments in each chapter are uneven and would have benefitted greatly from more strategic editorial input. The book lacks an index, making it difficult for the reader to refer to information that Narayanan presents. There are also many copy-editing problems and layout issues that distract the reader. In the end, the concern for assessment methods and the field reality remain disconnected. However, the value of Narayanan's contribution lies in centering societal multilingualism within the debate on language endangerment, with nuance from the perspective of languages spoken in the situations we consider to be most vulnerable. This perspective from South Asia catalyzed many ideas and prompted questions about the issues as they play out in my Southeast Asia field sites. While there is much and increasing pressure on smaller languages across the globe, ethnographic work reminds us that dynamic societal multilingualism can be the source of reliance and adaptation in unexpected places and forms. As Narayanan argues in this book, assessment of language vitality should capture more of the vital energy that can be observed in diverse and dynamic language ecologies.