Sustainable linguistics (definition)

Sustainable linguistics is both a label for a movement within linguistics aiming to promote sustainability issues relating to the (study of) language and a potential subfield of linguistics inspired by sustainability science. Its aims are to foster maximally inclusive dialogues about language and developing academic infrastructures that have positive or neutral societal and environmental impact and that are ethical.

As a branch of sustainability science, sustainable linguistics is unique in that its primary subject matter, language, is in itself an always changing but always continuing phenomenon. Understanding how and why languages are endangered, therefore, may also shed light on mechanisms that threaten sustainability more generally.