This landmark volume engages the lived realities of linguistic discrimination by naming and countering colonialingualism, an operating system that marginalizes Indigenous and minoritized communities in language education.

The book defines colonialingualism as the privileging of dominant colonial languages, knowledges, and neoliberal valorizations of diversity, operating from ideology and policy to practice and outcomes. Spanning the epistemic and geographic Global South, chapters present case studies, narratives, pedagogical interventions, and curriculum and policy analyses. Together, they show how the system operates, informing a practical counter-practice toolkit for curriculum and assessment design, institutional change, and policy routes. The book recenters Global South and Indigenous epistemologies as sources of theory and method, advancing raciolinguistic perspectives and multilingual frameworks such as translanguaging and plurilingualism. Contributors mobilize Sumud and Ubuntu pedagogies, heteroglossic space-making, life-story and autoethnographic methods, place-based inquiry, and AI literacies to expose and counter the colonialingual ideologies sustaining native-speakerism, accentism, and linguistic racism within English language education and beyond.

Ultimately, the volume demonstrates how minoritized communities resist, reclaim, and revitalize their languages and knowledge systems, and how programs and policies can be redesigned in accountable, pluriversal ways. It will appeal to scholars, researchers, practitioners, and postgraduate students in applied linguistics, TESOL, and language education engaged with urgent issues of linguistic and epistemic justice and decolonization.

Global South resistance to colonialingualism: An introduction

Paul Meighan and Leonardo Veliz

PART I Countering colonialingualism: Theoretical foundations, methodological shifts, and pedagogical reimaginings

1 Charting actionable pedagogical directions for decolonizing the languages curriculum

Adriana Diaz and Macarena Ortiz-Jimenez

2 “Is that allowed?”: Raciolinguistic entanglements and transraciolinguistic transgressions in EL(T) spaces

Rashi Jain

3 Toward a transepistemic academe: A critical autoethnography of lived coloniality in Pakistani ELT and academic specialization in (applied) linguistics

Waqar Ali Shah

4 Dialogic autoethnography as a duet performance of countering colonialingualism

Ufuk Keleş and Bedrettin Yazan

PART II Countering colonialingualism: Indigenous knowledges, language revitalization, and educational reworlding

5 Illuminating African epistemologies: Reclaiming literacy through Indigenous knowledge systems in higher education

Leketi Makalela and Gaokgakala Daniel Lemmenyane

6 Tackling neo-colonialingualism: Revitalizing Australian Aboriginal languages in the classrooms

Sender Dovchin, Nakarra/Nagada Michelle Martin, and Rhonda Oliver

7 Life stories of Indigenous peoples: Challenging coloniality and colonialingualism

Yesenia Bautista Ortiz, Mario Lopez-Gopar, Jamie L. Schissel, and Jose Julio Morales Chavez

8 Countering colonialingualism and promoting Indigenous language revitalization in higher education

Stephen May, Peter Keegan, and Mi Yung Park

9 Decolonial struggles for Indigenous multilingual education

Prem Phyak and Tsewang Chuskit

PART III Countering colonialingualism: Transformative practices, policy routes, and transnational community praxis

10 Countering colonialingualism with intellectual sovereignty of the Global South: English language education and social justice and equity in Bangladesh

Shaila Sultana

11 Entanglements, Englishes, and transraciolinguistic becoming: Navigating colonialingualism across borders

Patriann Smith, Dianne Wellington, Yetunde S. Alabede, Andrew Hunte, and Taiwo Ogundapo

12 Decolonizing bilingual education in Brazil for countering colonialingualism

Luciana C. de Oliveira, Fernanda C. Liberali, Michele Salles El Kadri, and Antonieta Megale

13 Moving beyond the coloniality of English: Building spaces of otherwise

Muzna Awayed-Bishara

14 From marginalization to inclusion: Refugee learners’ struggles with English dominance and future aspirations

Leonardo Veliz, Paul Meighan, and Julian Chen

Toward a transformative framework for decolonizing language education: An afterword

Paul Meighan and Leonardo Veliz