Linguistic anthropologists have used the concept of "scale" to describe how everyday interactions are linked to global flows and movements, particularly in the urban centers of Europe and North America. This article reconceptualizes the notion of "scale" by examining how residents in a small market village in eastern India order, in both hierarchical and nonhierarchical configurations, multiple graphic repertoires in dialogic engagement with the built environment. In the article, I suggest that script is an important semiotic modality through which indigenous and nonindigenous residents align notions of community, language, and territory according to different evaluative metrics, often in conflicting and antagonistic ways. These differential scalings of multiple scripts on the village's surfaces, and the disjunctures that exist between these scalings illuminate how dominant language hegemonies are perpetuated and, at the same time, contested by indigenous and minority language communities. [script, scale, indigeneity, linguistic landscape, literacy] 6Journal of Linguistic Anthropology

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This article examines the role of "borders" in the writing practices of Santali speakers, who are spread across the states of Jharkhand, Orissa, West Bengal and Assam in eastern India. A tension between a "trans-border" linguistic homogeneity and a "bordered" linguistic heterogeneity occurs in discussions around script. Santali is written in the various "official" scripts. Together with regional scripts, there is a recently invented script, called Ol Chiki ('writing symbol') in circulation as well as a Roman script invented by Christian missionaries. This article examines the alternating use of Ol Chiki, Roman and regional scripts in Santali language media. I argue that these media simultaneously posit a linguistically homogenous future while at the same time affirming a present that is deeply influenced by differing linguistic environments.

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