Locating Criticality in the Lexicography of Historically Marginalized Languages

In this contribution, we address a practice in which many field linguists working with endangered, Indigenous, and underresourced languages participate: the creation of a dictionary. In such lexicographical projects, there is an urgent need for language workers to become more aware of their own ideological and intellectual baggage and to explore how such projects can contribute to challenging harmful colonial research practices. Informed by long-standing traditions in lexicographical theory, this emerging self-awareness encourages researchers to reflect on the ways their dictionary work aligns with, or diverges from, established practices. We propose that by introducing a degree of criticality and self-reflexivity into lexicography, dictionary work with historically marginalized and underresourced languages can undergo an ethically productive and theoretical reorientation. We situate our contribution in the wider context of critical theory, decolonial studies, and critical Indigenous studies and in the growing literature on language reclamation and Indigenous methodologies.