Language more important than land - academic (fwd link)

[BSantaMaria]

I strongly disagree with the last statement of paragraph:  "Language &
culture are intertwined & because of this it's impossible to see how land
can be seen as more important."  It is because of how intertwined
everything is in our Indigenous ideologies/philosophies including
especially our lands, natural resources, languages, cultures, social and
economic issues, etc., etc., that is not understood by non-Natives or
non-Indig. people that is an issue in many aspects of language & culture
revitalization efforts.  I believe they do not "get it" because they do not
speak an Indigenous language that speaks intimately of our connections to
our homelands within our speech/terminology.  Speaking our languages
fluently also engages/intimately involves our lands and resources that come
from it, without these, our languages would be missing a vital link to our
cultures, some of us even believe that "our land is us" in our language,
is our mother.  Thinking of land as property with fiscal value is the
antithesis of some of our views on it and that usually comes from the
western world capitalist view.

These are also the reasons why I came to an MA thesis conclusion back in
the mid-1990's that language revitalization efforts involves "Wholistic
Healing for our Native People" to revive their languages and I meant in all
areas of Native life including returning to a belief in our
cosmologies/spiritality beliefs, traditional socio-economic patterns, etc.
It seems that recent articles and books on these issues are arriving at
similar conclusions. These reasons are also why I saw the field of
linguistics as lacking in considering these aspects of Native people
when studying our languages focusing so narrowly on a certain aspect
of them and mostly benefiting themselves.

I'm also going to request info from those on this list that know of some
books and titles/articles that I can review pertaining to what I brought
out above.

Ahiye'e (Thank you,


Bernadette Adley-SantaMaria
White Mountain Apache




On Mon, Sep 10, 2012 at 10:04 AM, Phillip E Cash Cash <
cashcash at email.arizona.edu> wrote:

> *Language more important than land - academic
> *
> Updated at 7:19 pm on 10 September 2012
>
> Linguistics expert Ghil'ad Zuckermann says that the loss of language is
> more damaging for indigenous peoples than the loss of their land.
>
> Access full article below:
>
> http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/te-manu-korihi/115509/language-more-important-than-land-academic
>
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