“Conquered Primitives Have No Written Language”: Language Revitalization, Reactionary Settler Colonialism, and Perpetual Genocide

Indigenous people in settler colonies such as Australia, the United States, and Canada are currently engaged in a range of projects to revitalize their languages: to reclaim and restore them in the wake of colonial destruction. Such language revitalization is frequently met with fierce backlash. This article examines the relationship between language revitalization backlash and genocide. I argue that language revitalization is part of broader efforts by Indigenous people to reconstitute themselves as distinct groups in reaction to colonial genocides. Backlash against language revitalization can therefore be seen as one element of ongoing efforts to prevent this, leading to a set of social and political relations I call perpetual genocide. I explore the dynamics of language revitalization backlash and perpetual genocide through an analysis of more than 600 social media comments collected from Australia over 2022 and 2023—the opening years of the International Decade of Indigenous Languages—and identify three key themes in these comments: civilizational racism, English and white supremacy, and linguistic diversity as a threat. Based on this analysis, I argue that this backlash, and the perpetual genocide of Indigenous peoples more broadly, is driven by a structural arrangement I call reactionary settler colonialism, which is led by a right-wing vanguard but involves all settlers as implicated subjects. I conclude by discussing counter-genocidal praxis in relation to this formation.