Mohawk language program launched (fwd)

[Wayne Leman]

>I wish this Mohawk program, and others like it, the best success. But after 
>many years of observation, I have concluded that the "traditional" 
>(traditional according to federal schools "whiteman" education) teaching of 
>indigenous language colors and numbers does

Sorry, there should have been "not" after "does"

> preserve a language conversationally. Nor do computers, as much as I value 
> the use of computers for preserving language *data*, or providing some 
> supplemental assistance for children with indigenous language 
> reinforcement.
>
> It seems to me that the *only* way indigenous languages can be preserved 
> as living languages for communication between individuals, that is, as a 
> medium for conversation and other kinds of communication, is for social 
> groups, such as family and clan units, to begin using the indigenous 
> language again. Children need to be immersed in a rich environment where 
> they are exposed to language the way any baby or toddler learns language, 
> by listening to it as it is spoken and imitating it. Federal monies can 
> help if they go toward helping social units actually speak the language to 
> children extensively.
>
> I'm sorry if this comes across negatively. It pains me deeply to see our 
> indigeous languages dying. My father's indigenous language died in front 
> of eyes when I was a child. He married an Anglo lady, not a Native 
> American, so English was spoken in our home, but I heard him speak his 
> language extensively to his mother and siblings. And just from that I 
> learning quite a bit of the language.
>
> Children will learn languages if they are exposed to them by their primary 
> caregivers, OR if they are taken out of their homes and put in boarding 
> schools where they are forced to speak a certain language. And we all know 
> the terrible things the boarding school language thing did to our Native 
> American and First Nations people.
>
> I suggest that our First Nations people need to return to truly 
> traditional ways of language teaching, which take place in the home. It 
> can be supplemented in schools, but it is difficult for children to learn 
> a language to be able to communicate in it in school, unless it is total 
> immersion, such as in a boarding school environment. Perhaps it would work 
> today if we had truly total immersion schools where the First Nation 
> language is the only language used in school by everyone, even if parents 
> and grandchildren speak English or French to the children when they return 
> home.
>
> We cannot depend on state, provincial, or federal governments to help us 
> preserve our languages. We have to do it for ourselves. If we need outside 
> money to help us do it ourselves, that's fine. But the actual teaching has 
> to be done by primary caregivers and it must be rich language, including 
> commands, questions, and everything else that we do with language. all 
> done *naturally*, as part of language as life is lived each day.
>
> Painfully,
> Wayne
> -----
> Wayne Leman
> Cheyenne website: http://www.geocities.com/cheyenne_language