Indigenous language survival

[David Costa]

It is going to be at the Mohegan Sun Casino at Uncasville, Connecticut, hosted by the Mohegan Tribe, but as far as I know, the exact dates have not been announced yet. Last or 2nd-to-last weekend in October, I assume.

best,
Dave Costa


> Aaniin -
> 
> I am wondering if anyone on this list has information about the 2014 Algonquian Conference?  I'd like to be sure to save the date and encourage some colleagues to attend.
> 
> G'miigwechwinim / Thanks!
> 
> Maaganiit
> 
> Margaret Noodin
> Assistant Professor
> English and American Indian Studies
> University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
> noodin at uwm.edu
> ais.uwm.edu
> ojibwe.net
> 
> Author of Bawaajimo: A Dialect of Dreams in Anishinaabe Language and Literature  http://msupress.org/books/book/?id=50-1D0-3434#.UsWOF2RDuUE
> 
> 
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Andrea Bear Nicholas" <abear at STU.CA>
> To: ALGONQUIANA at LISTSERV.LINGUISTLIST.ORG
> Sent: Wednesday, April 2, 2014 10:12:54 AM
> Subject: Re: Indigenous language survival
> 
> I greatly appreciate the responses from you Danielle and 
> Conor. Am still wondering what it will take to wake up our 
> governments and universities before it is too late for 
> most languages.
> 
> I will certainly check out the Harold Shiffman website.
> 
> Kci weliwen!
> Andrea
> 
> 
>  On Mon, 17 Mar 2014 17:53:58 +0000
>  "Danielle E. Cyr" <dcyr at YORKU.CA> wrote:
>> 
>> I fully agree with you, dear Andrea and Conor.
>> 
>> I remember a paper given by Harold Shiffman some years 
>> ago:  It was
>> something like : When equality is not enough: the case 
>> of minority
>> languages.
>> I tried to retrieve it, without success. However, a look 
>> at his website
>> list of publications is really enlightening in this 
>> regard:
>> http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/~haroldfs/public/
>> Cheers,
>> Danielle E. Cyr
>> ---- Original Message ----
>> From: Conor Quinn 
>> To: ALGONQUIANA at LISTSERV.LINGUISTLIST.ORG
>> Sent: Mon, Mar 17, 2014, 11:57 AM
>> Subject: Re: Indigenous language survival
>> 
>> Dia dhaoibh, a chairde!
>> Well put!  Some might argue that not all communities 
>> have the resources for
>> full MTM education, but that misses the point: denial 
>> (and devaluing) of
>> MTM educational resources is what the problem actually 
>> is, and always has
>> been.  It puts Native education in a second-class 
>> position, and children
>> never fail to pick up on that, no matter how hard 
>> teachers work to counter
>> it.  Equality's only equality if it's actually equal. 
>> Other efforts can be (and are) valuable steps along the 
>> way, but when
>> people on the ground succeed in bringing MTM education 
>> back, it's then that
>> the tide has really turned.
>> Thank you, Andrea, for reminding us that half of the 
>> solution is
>> remembering to challenge the original framing of the 
>> problem.
>> Slán,
>> bhur gcara
>> On Mon, Mar 17, 2014 at 10:20 AM, Andrea Bear Nicholas 
>> wrote:
>> I have finally had a chance to read through the ongoing 
>> conversation about
>> how to deal with the sense of shame and embarrassment 
>> that Indigenous
>> students experience in learning their language, and it 
>> fills me with
>> sadness and impatience. It strikes me that the 
>> conversation is missing an
>> enormous point—-the fact that the source of the shame is 
>> ongoing today in
>> any school where a dominant language is forced on 
>> Indigenous children as
>> the main medium of instruction, and it is forced if 
>> there is no option for
>> education in the medium of one’s mother-tongue. (Like 
>> Tove
>> Skutnabb-Kangas I believe that a child’s mother-tongue 
>> is the language of
>> his or her community, whether or not that child has had 
>> opportunity to
>> learn to speak that language.)
>> So clearly, the larger question for people interested 
>> in saving
>> Indigenous languages, is not how to deal with the 
>> historical trauma and
>> shame, but how to stop traumatizing Indigenous children 
>> altogether. And
>> that can only be done if students have the option of 
>> education in the
>> medium of their mother-tongue. So rather than training 
>> Indigenous students
>> just to teach in English or French, or training speakers 
>> of Indigenous
>> languages just to teach their languages in core 
>> programs, universities need
>> to train speakers of Indigenous languages to teach all 
>> subjects IN the
>> medium of their mother-tongue (MTM education).
>> With the help of Dorothy Lazore, the founder of the 
>> first immersion
>> school in a First Nations community, we at St. Thomas 
>> University in
>> Fredericton, NB, established just such a program, over 
>> twelve years ago. It
>> is our Native Language Immersion Teacher Training 
>> Program (composed of 13
>> courses) which currently certifies speakers, both with 
>> and without
>> teacher-training to teach in the medium of their 
>> mother-tongue. Since
>> establishing this program we have trained the first 
>> cohort of teachers who
>> began the very successful Mi’kmaq immersion program at 
>> Eskasoni, Cape
>> Breton. As in the case of other immersion programs, this 
>> one at Eskasoni
>> has begun the most essential task for maintaining their 
>> language—-that of
>> creating functional child speakers BEFORE they have a 
>> chance to develop the
>> shame and humiliation experienced by their peers taught 
>> only in the medium
>> of English. And like other immersion programs, it has 
>> also demonstrated
>> that immersion does no educational harm, but generally 
>> enhances the
>> learning of a dominant language and improves educational 
>> outcomes.
>> Of possible interest is the fact that our immersion 
>> teacher training
>> program is movable. Where numbers warrant we send 
>> instructors to teach in a
>> First Nation rather than requiring students to come to 
>> campus. We sent
>> Dorothy Lazore and others to Eskasoni to train the 
>> teachers in that
>> community, and that could be done for any community 
>> across the country.
>> But ideally every university truly interested in the 
>> survival of First
>> Nations languages should offer a program to train 
>> Indigenous language
>> speakers to teach in the medium of their mother-tongue. 
>> Considering that a
>> relatively poor country such as Papua New Guinea can 
>> support schools taught
>> in the medium of over 380 Indigenous languages, surely 
>> Canada and its
>> universities can support MTM education for the mere 60 
>> or so languages
>> indigenous to this country.
>> Rather than spending resources focused on teaching 
>> Indigenous languages in
>> core programs (which generally do not work to create 
>> speakers), and rather
>> than wringing our hands over how to deal with the 
>> ongoing trauma of an
>> imposed education in the medium of English or French, we 
>> would do far more
>> for the survival of Indigenous languages if we could 
>> pull together to
>> replace this traumatic form of education with MTM 
>> education. If this is not
>> done we might just as well resign ourselves to the fact 
>> that the current
>> wave of shame and trauma will soon become a tsunami that 
>> will swallow most,
>> if not all, First Nations languages in the next few 
>> decades.
>> Sincerely,
>> Andrea Bear Nicholas, Native Language Immersion 
>> Programs, St. Thomas
>> University, Fredericton, NB
>> PS
>> I was unable to attach an important piece on this topic 
>> by Tove
>> Skutnabb-Kangas and Robert Dunbar, so will try to send 
>> it separately.
>> 	
>> 
>>