Ethnolinguistics is a field of linguistic anthropology which studies the language of a particular ethnic group.
Ethnolinguistics is frequently associated with minority linguistic groups within a larger population, such as the Native American languages or the languages of immigrants. In these cases, ethnolinguistics studies the use of a minority language within the context of the majority population, and it also studies the perception of the language by the majority population, for example whether the ethnic group receives state support to keep their language alive.
More generally, ethnolinguistics studies the relationship between language and culture, and the way different ethnic groups use their language to perceive the world. A well-known (but controversial) ethnolinguistic subject is the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis, which states that perception is limited by what can be described in one's own language.
Ethnolinguists study the boundaries of perception created by language, and show how this is linked to different cultures and societies. An often stated example is the supposedly large number of words in Inuktitut for "snow," which may signify to an ethnolinguist that snow is an important part of Inuit culture.
Ethnolinguistic Vitality Theory provides a framework into which the data about a group can be placed and provides a certain degree of predictive power as well.
In addition, Ethnolinguistic Vitality takes into account in a fairly structured way the factors mentioned by Fishman (1991) as being important dimensions in the assessment of the degree of dislocation of a minority language group.
Though the ethnolinguistic identity factors were identified and described for each community, it was exceedingly difficult to express them in such a way as to make them comparable between communities.
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