Website viewed 13/07/2025
1 This special issue of Moussons is dedicated to local languages in education across Southeast Asia, a region widely characterized by its diversity, including in linguistic terms. Although numerical estimates dealing with languages inevitably involve certain limitations and shortcomings (which will be briefly discussed in this introduction), the comprehensive database Ethnologue maintained by the Summer Institute of Linguistics (SIL) does provide useful orders of magnitude. According to this database, out of 7,150+ living languages worldwide as of 2025, approximately 1,370 “living indigenous languages” are spoken by more than 685 million people in Southeast Asia.1

2 Through contributions dealing with six of Southeast Asia’s eleven countries—Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Myanmar, the Philippines, and Singapore—the present issue of Moussons explores the relations between linguistic diversity and education policies. It considers implications on several critical issues, which include (1) the preservation of cultural and linguistic diversity, (2) access to (quality) education, and (3) the strengthening of national cohesions.