Siraya update

[Chun Jimmy Huang]

Oh wow, thank you for the information, Heather. It really 
interests me. I see modern nationalism (be it originated in Europe 
or China) as the main obstacle of cultural and linguistic 
diversity. Besides "one language, one nation," it also presumes 
"one history," "one people," "one discourse," etc. In fact I am 
working on this topic in my dissertation. May I reference the 
Metis example?

Jimmy



On Fri May 15 22:54:59 EDT 2009, Heather Souter 
<hsouter at GMAIL.COM> wrote:

> Jimmy,
> 
> I am sorry I was not clear!  Our own Metis political leaders have 
> privileged
> one of our own traditional languages over others!  This is 
> causing problems
> for our own people!  This has been done for nation building 
> purposes....
> Somehow the leaders of our Metis National Council have bought 
> into the
> misguided idea of "one language, one nation"!  The Council seems 
> to think it
> is easier to deal with our Canadian federal government and 
> international
> bodies if we have only one "historic and official language".  I 
> guess this
> is because they think that in Canada all (?) indigenous peoples 
> only have
> one language (with one or more dialects)....  However, that is 
> not the lived
> reality of our people!  We have been multilingual since our 
> ancestors
> developed their own unique identity and developed into a 
> nation.... (Being a
> hybrid of European and Native peoples makes us a bit usual among 
> indigenous
> peoples--at least in North America at least!)  However, this 
> insistence on
> privileging one language over all others has been really divisive 
> and
> particularly painful for our Elders who are speakers of our 
> languages....
> Just for your information....
> 
> Heather
> 
> On Fri, May 15, 2009 at 9:20 PM, Chun Jimmy Huang 
> <huangc20 at ufl.edu> wrote:
> 
>> Thanks Heather,
>> 
>> just to comment on this: (Of course, our case may be very 
>> different from
>> yours in that our leaders have privileged one language over all 
>> the others
>> our people traditionally speak....)
>> 
>> In fact, the one and only official, national, and most dominant 
>> language in
>> Taiwan today, Mandarin Chinese, was brought to the island by the 
>> Chinese
>> nationalists in 1945. Before 1945, NO ONE (either Austronesian 
>> indigenes or
>> other early Han immigrants) spoke the language...
>> 
>> Jimmy
>>