Translanguaging dialects: claiming language sovereignty in Hmong language reclamation

This article recentres the anticolonial and language reclamation roots of translanguaging pedagogies as practices of language sovereignty for Indigenous and minoritised languages. The authors examine the role of language sovereignty in Indigenous and minoritised heritage language reclamation education, specifically HMoob (Hmong) language education. Despite HMoob (Hmong) language having multiple, sometimes meshed, non-hierarchical dialects, forced displacement to the United States and other countries has imposed dialect separation and subordination through monoglossic pressures of assimilation and school-based language teaching practices. This article uses narrative policy portraiture to reflect community language policy work that establishes and wrestles with HMoob’s multidialectalism. We assert language sovereignty as a central translanguaging stance for language reclamation and futurity efforts by and for HMoob people.