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<p>Thank you, Rolland. I am listening.</p>
<p>Jimmy</p>
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<p>On Thu, 30 Aug 2012 05:26:36 -0400, Rolland Nadjiwon wrote:</p>
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<div dir="ltr" align="left"><span class="468250407-30082012">Hi all...below are:</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" align="left"><span class="468250407-30082012">Responses to 'Where Are Your Keys'...</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" align="left"><span class="468250407-30082012">I pondered the suggestions and comments in the post for some time upon receiving it. Somehow, it did not feel satisfactory. Keeping this in mind, I forwarded the post to a PhD Professor of English Language Literature and Theory and a PhD in Linguistics and am including their responses with this post. I realize it is somewhat past the point of presentation of the posting but I feel conversations of this nature have no 'shelf life' so long as there are indigenous peoples they(the contents of the posting) are attempting to apply to. I am not qualified to respond as a linguist so I will not attempt to deceive anyone by pretending a qualification. However, I retired two years ago from contractual teaching with a number of Universities in Canada and the USA. My last contract was at the University of British Colombia. I was given 'free rein' to develop a course of my choosing...I finally submitted for a course in 'Ancestral Memory'. I add this supplemental information only so the list members can realize I have not, just recently, fallen off a 'turnip truck' and my opinions do carry a measure of legitimacy...especially since I am usually deemed 'off topic'. This one is not off topic but only a few days late.</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" align="left"><span class="468250407-30082012">Over the past 42 years, I have been involved in almost every aspect of cultural and linguistic disintegration of so called 'Native Americans'. Over those 42 years, it became patently clear our indigenous peoples in so called North and South America and constituent archipelago, have a history that started only in 1492...after a lot of Papal Bull(s) and resultant atrocities. Today the 'ancestral memories' of those same generational perpetrators are now attempting to heal the open wound of their continental consciousness using the almost identical methods of colonization used by previous generations. It is still colonization regardless of the intention or how 'wonderful' it allows the colonizers to feel. Over those years of my involvement, I have attended uncountable workshops all dedicated to the proposition that I needed to change my behavior and conducted by nonindigenous consultants. Some years ago, I stood up in one of the workshops and started to walk out. The facilitator asked after me, 'Hey, where are you going...' in his authoritative voice. First off, my name was not 'Hey' and as a second, I paused turned to the him and the work shoppers and said, 'I am a Potowatomi...because of what I have been put through for the last 'blankety blank' years, it has taken me this long to like myself, my family, my community, my people, our culture and our language. I like who I am now and who I always was and I am not about to change that for anyone. If this means my job, I am now a 'free' agent....' and walked out.</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" align="left"><span class="468250407-30082012">How is all this of any relevancy....</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" align="left"><span class="468250407-30082012">I am a published writer so a few years ago a very fluent speaker of one of the older versions of 'anishinabehmowin' asked me if he could translate some of my poems into his language. I told him, '...sure, that would be ok...' I also told him I would agree under one condition, that he translate it into his language and then without any reference what so ever, translate what he had written back into English. He agreed. A week or so later, he handed me a folder of his translation works with the three versions and with some laughter told me the version he translated from his language back into English was so very different from the original poem I had written. We talked about that for a time and both agreed that kind of harmonization between the languages could not be possible. He has not attempted to translate any more of my poems. He said the result really surprised him since he teaches anishinabehmowin at a local college. I explained to him how I thought the English language, in particular, is abstraction and manipulation expressly for the purpose of conquest, colonization and is a mercantile language...a language of getting the best part of the deal and is so in its daily living. Also, that English, as we know it, is an agglomeration of many other languages assimilating those words into their own thought patterns of trading for the best deal.</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" align="left"><span class="468250407-30082012">We talked about how any language is simply a tool and any tool brought across cultures, if it is integrated into the cultural patterns of the receiver, it is integration. If the tool is brought across with the 'already lived in' meanings and culture of the 'other', it is assimilation. When non native speakers attempt to revitalize or teach a language to or back to the native speakers, they are doing so with their 'already lived in' cultural baggage...in other words, it is innately assimilationist unless you are just doing 'tourist' stuff.</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" align="left"><span class="468250407-30082012">In 1967, I was teaching elementary school in a very isolated fly in community with very few English speakers, including the students. There was a school in the community for only twelve years before I got there so anyone older than twelve did not have the experience of attending and 'Indian Day School'. But to get to my point, I attended my first and only 'teachers convention' with teachers from the many 'Indian' communities located in the same 'Indian Affairs School District'...all isolated and all with an already language and culture dominant in the communities. I know because I worked with most of them before I began teaching. </span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" align="left"><span class="468250407-30082012">At any rate, at this convention people/teachers were sharing their experiences in these culturally, linguistically foreign communities as a teacher. Most of what I heard telling felt almost like having a rasp drawn across my bones. One teacher in particular, I really had the urge to beat the crap out of him. He said it was really great in 'his' community and he was accepted like one of the community. Twice a week he said he chose a student and told them, 'Tonight I am visiting your home for tea so tell your Mom and Dad to have some tea and cakes ready...' I could not believe what I was hearing...by the way, I was the only 'indigenous' person there. He went on to explain to the gathering how he was so respected. He said someone was the only one with a complete set of dinner dishes and they would pass that set over to the family who would be hosting him that evening. He concluded with, '...that is how much they respected me and wanted me to feel as one of them...' If this has not set you off by now, probably nothing can.</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" align="left"><span class="468250407-30082012">Anyhow, this teacher, much worse than the rest had not the slightest inkling of what he was putting that community through while he unbelievably thought he was doing a great thing and was in fact teaching the community how to be good hosts. I was born into such a community and if we saw a complete set of dishes laid out for tea and a cake, we were definitely in someone's house who did not live on the reservation. In the community I was in, we drank our tea out of totally recycled jam jars or what ever could act as a drinking vessel short of birch bark. Cake...their language did not even have a word for it...which is probably not the present case. They may have invented a word by now which may have become a community accepted descriptor, which is not to say, the next community some air miles away would have worked out the same descriptor or would know what people from that community were talking about. They would understand the descriptor but it would not have the universality of the English word 'cake'.</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" align="left"><span class="468250407-30082012">What I am saying, is, if you set up an artificial conversation in an artificial social situation you will be putting out an artificial language and it will not work socially or conversationally in the real time lives of the people. We now have any number of people who speak our language who have learned it in schools, in a school environment and are now qualified to teach it back to the communities they have never lived in and may not even be from or be even the same tribe. In our area it is already causing great animosity because the teachers are from a totally different dialectic area. The people do want their language, but they want the 'real McCoy' not an academic or linguistics' version.</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" align="left"><span class="468250407-30082012">There is a bundle of discussion could happen with any of the points I raise but there is neither time or space and at 5:08 AM, it is almost time to get up with my Grandchildren so I had best bid 'good morning' to anyone who reads it this morning. I will also repost this conversation in its entirety to the two persons I consulted but without the identification of ILAT...</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" align="left"><span class="468250407-30082012"><em>Hi Rolland.<br /><br />There are many methodologies for teaching adults a new language. They have various merits and disadvantages.<br /><br />When we start from statements in English and then translate them into an indigenous language we are no longer teaching that language but an appropriated form of it. English is especially adapted to do this for many reasons. For example, if I wanted to learn how to say, How are you feeling? in Japanese, I might get an answer, but it's taboo in Japanese to talk about their own or someone else's feelings. A more usual question might be, Where are you going?. On the other hand it's quite OK for a younger person, especially a woman, to ask someone older whom they just met, How old are you? We might consider that impertinent but it's crucial to establish the relative age between speakers because it determines which of the different languages are appropriate. Age and relationship, friend, stranger, family, all are important to the language choices- grammar and diction. Our standard sentences require subjects;<br />Japanese doesn't. One rarely says "I"- watashi- try avoiding it in English.<br /><br />I can't describe how this applies to Ojibwa, but I know it does in similar ways and others. I know that it applies in different ways across languages, including French and English. The heart of the problem is that when we teach by starting with questions in English and translate them to whatever language and then learn those we end up colonizing both the native speakers of the language and the language itself. We distort it, to say the least, and produce a hybrid, a dead and even deadly language. They translated the Christian Bible into Japanese, but it wasn't really Japanese any more. American centered academic Japanese isn't like Japanese anymore either. MLA rules don't apply, but the language is quite capable of adopting those distortions. Passive sentences are preferred to direct statement. 'Beating around the bush' a far more preferable than direct statement. Ambiguity is fine. Passive sentences are often preferred, partly because the subject doesn't need to be specified. Silence is the best way to communicate. We learn to abhor it. He must be bored, we'd say. Maybe stupid.<br /><br />Cultural differences are embedded in language and languages embed and promote the values of their cultures.A lot of harm has resulted. is resulting. from imposing the cultural values embedded in English, that most English speakers take for granted and common sense. How many English speakers question the idea that a sentence is a complete thought, and furthermore, that the though is not complete if the sentence isn't a complete sentence. Both ideas are false.<br /><br />It's not a good idea to use fluent native speakers of a language and transforn them into tape or whatever recorders. I'd call that linguocide, a form of genocide. There are batter ways; we still have a lot to learn about teaching languages. <br /><br />Sincerely,<br /><br />Bernie<br /></em></span></div>
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<div align="left"><span style="font-family: Tahoma; font-size: x-small;"><strong>From:</strong><span class="468250407-30082012"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: small;"> <span style="font-family: Tahoma; font-size: x-small;"><em>Karl</em></span></span></span></span></div>
<div align="left"><span style="font-family: Tahoma; font-size: x-small;"><span class="468250407-30082012"> </span><strong>Sent:</strong> August-28-12 1:20 PM<br /><strong>To:</strong> Rolland Nadjiwon<br /><strong>Subject:</strong> Re: FW: How many hours of recorded speech?<br /></span></div>
<div>Yeah, that's not really teaching the language, in my opinion. It is the style of language teaching they use for tourists who want to visit foreign lands. The best way to learn, I think is total immersion. That becomes a problem with a culture where fewer and fewer people speak the native language. However, if one could get enough native speakers together to teach a kind of "summer school" experience, say in a modest camp, with lessons and recreation each day, then I think that might work a lot better. And no English allowed, not even when classes are out, or there are "penalties" (like having to wash the dishes, or do the laundry or something - nothing too serious but enough to discourage people speaking in anything but the native language - it would be gentler, wiser, reversal of the rez school situation where kids were punished severely if they didn't speak English - and this setting could be outdoors, "woodsy" with canoeing, swimming, games, music, etc., and there could also be lessons in traditional ways, such as story-telling, history lessons, learning about flora and fauna, medicines, proper rituals for special occasions, healing circles and healing circle traditions, sweat lodge, etc). Set up camps like that for each of the main tribes, each summer for a couple of months. The kids would be acculturated by the time they reach their teens (starting with visits each summer at maybe age 8 yrs. old - so 4 to 5 years of that would help a lot, I'd think). That's how they do it at Latvian camps in Canada and the U.S. for those who want to hold onto their culture, but alas, even that is fading now and many north american Balts are getting slowly assimilated. Agh. Still, they hold on and at least there are the Baltic states which still exist and help preserve the culture which is very different from indigenous cultures in North America which are threatened daily.</div>
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<div>Best wishes,</div>
<div>Karl<br /><br /><br />Dept. of English Language, Literature & Creative Writing<br /><br /><br /><span style="color: #990099;">-----"Rolland Nadjiwon" wrote: -----</span></div>
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<div style="border-left: black 2px solid; padding-left: 5px; padding-right: 0px;">To: Karl<span class="468250407-30082012"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: small;"> and </span></span>Bernie<br />From: "Rolland Nadjiwon" <br />Date: 08/28/2012 03:19AM<br />Subject: FW: How many hours of recorded speech?<br /><br />
<div><span style="font-family: Default Monospace,Courier New,Courier,monospace; font-size: x-small;"><br />Just wondering what you think of these comments and suggestions for<br />language learning with indigenous learners. I checked him out and he teaches<br />'facilitators' to teach language using his 'Where Are Your Keys? Program<br />methodology....I wanted to respond to his posting but mine always seem to<br />result in un-resolvable dichotomies or the suggestion I am off topic or<br />offending someone. This is a list entitled 'Indigenous Languages and<br />Technology(ILAT)'. Most often they speak of language not as a tool but as a<br />solution innately assimilationist...not that it is their intention so much<br />as it is built into the very foundation of their conceptualization of<br />'other'.<br />It was suggested to me years ago that I had to learn to speak to officials<br />of the Christian Religions and academics with more than a grunt. I studied<br />hard at expanding my grunts only to arrive at a place where a 'grunt' would<br />still be much easier to work with...<br /><br />wahjeh<br />rolland nadjiwon<br />________________ <br />The use of solar energy has not been opened up because the oil industry does<br />not own the sun.<br />Ralph Nader <br /><br />-----Original Message-----<br />From: On Behalf Of Evan Gardner<br />Sent: August-27-12 9:13 PM<br />To:<br />Subject: Re: How many hours of recorded speech?<br /><br />Evan from Where Are Your Keys? here...<br /><br />What a wonderful question! I instantly started dreaming of the possibilities<br />and if I could go back in time and record fluent speakers for the purpose of<br />using the recordings to make new speakers...<br /><br />My wish would be recordings of people making arrangements to have a party,<br />gathering, get together... lots of back and forth, question and answer,<br />present/simple tense dialog.<br /><br />Ex:<br />When do you want to have a party?<br />Who should we invite? why?<br />Who should we not invite? Why?<br />Will all my ex-girlfriends be there? Will all your ex-girlfriends be there?<br />What is the purpose of the party? Why are we having this gathering?<br />1st birthday? 100th? funeral? wedding? language night? movie?<br />What will we eat?<br />Who is bringing what dish? is that a good idea?<br />How is everyone getting there? Do they need rides?<br />Which?<br />Where?<br />How often?<br />How many people?<br />Why? Why not?<br /><br />This kind of back and forth will give better examples of entry level<br />conversation. There is a tendency to record word lists (too basic) and high<br />level story telling (too advanced). There is seldom enough simple but<br />complete "get 'r' done" language which shows the simple and elegant<br />structures and patterns of living languages. I hope for enough of these<br />conversations to write appropriate level children's books... See Spot Run.<br />and then 1st grade 2nd grade 3rd grade through 7th grade readers. Scaffold<br />grammar to get people speaking using conversations and not word lists.<br /><br />Another area I would like to see more of is real joking, teasing, arguing in<br />the language... how do fluent elders rip on each other?<br />Respect each other? Love each other? Get mad at each other?...<br />irreverent, bold, loving, but real. Retelling of actual events by the<br />participants in those events.<br /><br />"Can you guys remember a time when you had a fight? What was it about?<br />Who won?" of course there must be a lot of trust in the room for this kind<br />of interaction. But I remember my Grandma wouldn't hold back when she<br />talked about the wonderful things, and stupid adventures my Grampa had put<br />her through. I wish the tape player was going then.<br />Like the time he wrecked their model T in down town New York because he<br />wanted to see how many red lights he could run without having to stop...4...<br />the garbage truck suffered minor damage... no-one was harmed... Model T<br />towed away at Gradma's expense! Now there is a kids'<br />book using the grammar extrapolated from a documentation exercise! HOW<br />MANY?...<br /><br /></span></div>
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