spontaneous acquisition

[Susan Penfield]

Thank you, Phil,
This is an important perspective to share and one we should all think
about and respect.
S.

On Jan 26, 2008 11:11 AM, phil cash cash <cashcash at email.arizona.edu> wrote:

> Greetings ILAT,
>
> I just wanted to share this quote found in a UK press article regarding
> the last
> speaker of Eyak.
>
> "I got that strong feeling right here that it's going to come back. God
> will
> send down Eyak to start all over again."  Marie Smith Jones
>
> As an indigenous person, it feels good when I read words like this.
>
> Myself, I can say that I come from a strong spiritual family/community
> where
> words have power, believing has power, and acting in the way of an
> ancestral
> life has power.  Basically, good things can happen from living a strong
> traditional life, so long as it can be imagined, modeled, taught, or acted
> upon.
>
> What I want to point out though is that there is a fairly
> unknown/undocumented
> element in language revitalization where community people can experience
> or
> otherwise cite instances of spontaneous language acquisition.  Now the
> linguist
> in you is probably asking "how is that possible?" or "language is too
> variable
> and it would be virtually impossible to acquire the full encyclopedic
> vocabulary of a language," right?
>
> Our venerable speaker of Eyak believed in it.  I believe it...because I
> have
> witnessed it and heard first-person accounts of spontaneous acquisition.
>  To
> tell the truth, I am not sure how to describe it if asked but I know it
> happens.
>
> Just a thought for you all today...
>
> Phil Cash Cash (Cayuse/Nez Perce)
> UofA
>
> ~~~
>
> In praise of ... the Eyak language
> Leader
> Friday January 25, 2008
> The Guardian
> http://www.guardian.co.uk/leaders/story/0,,2246576,00.html
>



-- 
____________________________________________________________
Susan D. Penfield, Ph.D.

Department of English (Primary)
American Indian Language Development Institute (AILDI)
Second Language Acquisition & Teaching Ph.D. Program (SLAT)
Department of Language,Reading and Culture
Department of Linguistics
The Southwest Center (Research)
Phone for messages: (520) 621-1836


"Every language is an old-growth forest of the mind, a watershed of thought,
an ecosystem of spiritual possibilities."

                                                         Wade Davis...(on a
Starbucks cup...)
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