I wonder if this would be true for Native languages

Wed Mar 28 03:18:59 UTC 2012

I had a great discussion this morning with a colleague about how we could bring culture and language as one as part of an educational program component where a cultural skill is passed on (eg fish preparation) which is taught hands on by a fluent speaker who teaches specific Cree words/phrases with the activity of preparing fish. Those same  words then are added to the general langauge of instruction in other program components by staff to keep the langauge and skills relevant. This is a basic upgrading program. This appraoch would be repeated teaching other cultural skills with langauge as part of the program. These students then be able  to teach their children these skills and words/phrases as so on-using the program as one possible entry point for cultural transmission. In today's world-our skills have been pushed aside as these skills were necessary everyday skills so now we have to find space them them somewhere. If we are open to b eing particularly creative in visualizing them being used in new contexts, we can still begin integrating them back into everyday practices so they again become the norm.  People who are able to share their skills feel competent as their cultural skill is recognized while culture is being passed onto others. We have to nuture language where we have the flexibility to do so-make new educational models, adapt to continually changing cultural contexts and build teaching/learning approaches that are resilient for the next generation. Let's do what we can now-today-everyday we lose more and more fluent speakers and cultural skills yet every new action means the increased possibility of innovative appraoches which meet these challenges to cultural erosion. Certainly technology and change has given us digital tools that can make passing language and culture (videos, MP3 language audio, digital games, etc) The momentum created by digital communication has propelled the spread of music, English, western culture and other aspects of culture but it can be harnessed to do the same for the langauges and people's culture we are attempting to keep alive.  I learned how to cut fish for smoking via a video on YouTube produced by our reserve's langauge department. Unfortunately few Elders have the stamina to take me out and teach me when I am not working which is a hectic schedule. But thanks to the video-i was still taught the skill which I then passed hands-on to my niece, daughter and son in law.  This is a great discussion-i am so glad that some got this topic started, great ideas and thoughts I share also!

Date: Tue, 27 Mar 2012 21:40:47 -0500
From: rzs at WILDBLUE.NET
Subject: Re: [ILAT] I wonder if this would be true for Native languages
To: ILAT at LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU

Thanks Rolland,

i feel it almost every day too..there is a heavy weight dragging on any attempt to revitalize our language,
 maintain ceremony or even gathering for social dance pot-lucks. One of the curses is "busyiness"

and it has so infected us, that gatherings, for language practice or study or even sacred gatherings
must be "fit into a schedule" . I doubt our ancient ancestors were idle much, but there were some things that 

weren't designed to fit in your schedule...you just were to be there.

ske:noh
Richard Zane Smith
(Sohahiyoh)

On Tue, Mar 27, 2012 at 8:26 PM, Rolland Nadjiwon <mikinakn at shaw.ca> wrote:

        Another rant maybe. Perhaps 
9/10ths of the unseen iceberg as a metaphor, is these languages were never meant 
to survive in a so called 'post colonial' New World. Their intentional 
destruction is 'fact' well known by the survivors and historically documented. 
Perhaps language loss is merely a symptom of why these languages are being lost. 
Perhaps the problem is not even with the 'peoples' but external to them and 
built into the fabric of what has become 'the Americas'. If there is such a 
great moral interest in the survival of endangered indigenous languages and the 
home and community are the conduits for language transmission then the family, 
people and the community must also be repaired from the ravaging destruction of 
both overt, covert and insidious colonialism. Perhaps the people and communities 
must be involved in the development of their own language survival programs in a 
manner which validates their own intelligence and worth, culture, cosmology and 
life paths. There is not much point bringing into the communities, 'for the 
people', a pre-formulated pedagogy for language skills when the real problem is 
their total cultural, linguistic and spiritual survival. All of the tribes 
survived with their myriad of languages until 'somebody done somebody wrong' and 
have never identified or corrected that wrong. It must be understood, accepted 
and dealt with that these 'tribal' languages have their own 'already there' 
which is as different from everyone else's 'already there'. Their 'already lived 
in languages' are as different from each tribe and the rest of the world as 
Chinese is from Gaelic. These tribal languages have absolutely no 'cognate' 
relationship to any other language than their own dialects and those languages 
are generated in a 'primary orality'. Any linguist must be aware of this...guess 
I should stop here before I am reminded I am off topic again...apologies. There 
is so much more can be said...I live 'inside' this destruction and loss. I deal 
with it every day and not from some evangelical 
ardor.
        I agree with many of the 
points you make Rudy outside the idea that institutionalization can be an 
solution. Institutions have not yet provided or even acted on any long term 
survival, a fact which is becoming even more apparent as we move with ever 
increasing speed toward the demise of this present civilization and perhaps even 
the earth itself. These endangered languages are symbiotically tied to the earth 
and the cosmos. Institutions have little if anything to offer them other than 
jobs teaching endangered languages. You cannot expect these peoples to embrace 
institutionalization which has no history of benefits to them...in fact 
documented evidence to the opposite. There has to be something new and 
innovative to accommodate a new and changed environment. Please don't ask me 
what it is...I have been working on it for almost 50 years. My greatest 
successes happened in the mid-60s and early 
70s.
        During the early 70s, I was a 
coordinator for Keewatinung Institute, a cultural, educational and spiritual 
center for our people in our area. We were the very first of our kind in Canada. 
>From that position, I had the absolutely fantastic opportunity of coordinating 
The Indian Ecumenical Conference...a gathering of spiritual leaders from as many 
tribes we could get representatives from. It was 'ecumenical' in the broader 
meaning of the term. We had a Steering Committee of elders and spiritual leaders 
to help with the development of logistics and content for the first great 
gathering at Morley, Alberta. During the planning sessions over many months and 
in many locations, the idea of an 'agenda' came up. The Steering Committee after 
thinking on it told us we didn't need an agenda. Those of us 'trained' to think 
'inside the box' felt we had to have plans and objectives and to know what we 
were going to do. The elders and spiritual leaders told us what we would do is 
to look at how we were 500 years ago, how we look today and how we want to look 
in another 500 years. So, that was the 'gist' of our getting together. I still 
think of that especially when I hear out tribal councils and politicians 
speaking of five year plans, 10 year plans and sometimes a 20/25 year plan. Our 
gatherings were very, very successful and the spin off is still felt today...and 
we are still at it 40 some years later. You can read about it in a book entitled 
'Around the sacred fire: a native religious activism in the Red Power era : a 
narrative map of the Indian Ecumenical Conference' by James Treat. I am adding a 
short review if anyone is interested.

Around the sacred 
fire: a native 
religious activism in the Red Power era : a narrative map of the Indian 
Ecumenical Conference. James Treat . Palgrave Macmillan, 
2003 - History - 376 pages

Around the Sacred Fire is a compelling 
cultural history of intertribal activism centered on the Indian Ecumenical 
Conference, an influential movement among native people in Canada and the U.S. 
during the Red Power era. Founded in 1969, the Conference began as an attempt at 
organizing grassroots spiritual leaders who were concerned about the conflict 
between tribal and Christian traditions throughout Indian country. By the 
mid-seventies thousands of people were gathering each summer in the foothills of 
the Rockies, where they participated in weeklong encampments promoting spiritual 
revitalization and religious self-determination. Most historical overviews of 
native affairs in the sixties and seventies emphasize the prominence of the 
American Indian Movement and the impact of highly publicized confrontations such 
as the Northwest Coast fish-ins, the Alcatraz occupation, and events at Wounded 
Knee. The Indian Ecumenical Conference played a central role in stimulating 
cultural revival among native people, partly because Conference leaders 
strategized for social change in ways that differed from the militant groups. 
Drawing on archival records, published accounts, oral histories, and field 
research, James Treat has written the first comprehensive study of this 
important but overlooked effort at postcolonial interreligious 
dialogue.
The closing review statement may sound like it was a failure...it was not or 
there would be no global indigenous peoples movement and an increasingly unified 
global voice. Treat's book will be the most you ever find on it because, it was 
meant to be that way. Our only paper trails were briefs for funding and 
resulting financial statements. There were no native 'political' so called 
leaders, tribal councils or politicians...they didn't even know it was 
happening...not that any of them would have cared. Anyhow, I had best conclude 
my rant and thanks for listening...if you did so. I am turtle clan and 
usually have slow and sometimes lengthy excursions through my own 
thoughts. megwetch....

wahjeh
rolland 
nadjiwon
_____________________________________
"Political correctness is a 
doctrine, fostered by a delusional,
illogical minority, and rabidly promoted 
by an unscrupulous mainstream media,
which holds forth the proposition that 
it is entirely possible to pick up a piece of shit by the clean 
end."

-----Original Message-----
From: Indigenous Languages and 
Technology [mailto:ILAT at LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU] On 
Behalf Of Rudy Troike
Sent: March-27-12 7:12 PM
To: 
ILAT at LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU
Subject: Re: [ILAT] I wonder if this would be true 
for Native languages

I agree with James Crippen's concerns about highly 
endangered languages:

"There's a dangerous temptation to somehow make 
schooling into the saviour for highly endangered languages. ... Depending solely 
on education institutions to solve language decline just seems to make things 
worse, not better, because it encourages people to *not* take an active role in 
keeping the language alive."

As I noted in a subsequent post, the Navajo 
bilingual program at Rock Point, before it declined, demonstrated that for a 
Native language, it IS possible to develop a thorough K-12 curriculum which 
matches the English curriculum (but includes native cultural and historical 
content, and even in math is sensitive to linguistic features of the language 
differing from or lacking in English). Where there are enough speakers to 
support the effort, it could be possible in communities like the Dakota to 
restore the level of literacy which once existed -- though the window of 
opportunity is rapidly closing down.

But as James said, this cannot be 
carried just by the schools, since real language learning begins in the home and 
in interpersonal inter- action. However, thanks to the tradition of government 
and parochial schooling, many if not most parents are unable to provide that 
'home nest' for the child. That is why a community effort like that in New 
Zealand and Hawaii, to place young children with older fluent speakers in 
'nests' or day-care centers (better yet, for a whole summer) can be effective in 
establishing early natural (not formally instructed) acquisition, which can then 
be brought to school and reinforced. A holistic plan is needed which involves 
more than just individual families.

One of the perennial problems in 
Native language maintenance is that 'higher-level' academic competence is 
non-existent, and community members and students perceive that there is 'no use' 
in learning the language since it has no further 'marketplace' value. Attitudes 
thus play an enormous role both in the perspective of the community and of 
students. Developing literacy in the Native language is empowering, and even at 
advanced (high school and college) levels, if academically advanced materials 
are developed, parallel literacy is possible. This is what the Rock Point 
program spectacularly demonstrated, and is showing some effect in Cherokee in 
Oklahoma as well.

The use of Native languages in schools has, as the new 
Colorado law has shown, given institutional recognition to these languages and 
brought Native language speakers into the school setting for the first 
time.
So it is not just an either/or situation -- meaningful school 
instruction can provide a mooring-post for communities and families to rally 
around.

Communities, families, and individuals must ultimately take 
primary responsibility for language maintenance and preservation. It can't, as 
James says, just be pushed off to schools to somehow magically accomplish alone. 
Without motivation, buy-in, and active participation, endangered languages 
cannot survive on their own.

  Rudy Troike

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-- 

"Think
not forever of yourselves... nor of your own generation. Think of
continuing generations of our families, think of our grandchildren and of those
yet unborn, whose faces are coming from beneath the ground."             The Peacemaker, 

 richardzanesmith.wordpress.com

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