EXTINCT Indians and EXTINGUISHING Creoles

[Michel DeGraff]

I felt moved by Rob Moore, Jeffrey Kopp, Tony Johnson, Phil Cash Cash and
others' commentaries to share some of my own experience as a Creolist
creolophone.  I am from Haiti and work on Haitian Creole.  I've often found
much similarities in attitudes toward Native and Creole peoples.

I was particularly struck by this comment by Phil Cash Cash:

> unfortunately for many of us native peoples, we are plagued by historians
> who seem to want to evoke an imagined (imaginary) pathos on native history.
> this kind of pathos (most unique of historians) tends to over dramatize
> human events in ways that deny and invalidate the experiences of others, as
> in this case, the Chinook peoples who are survivors in their own right.  as
> in my own history (Nez Perce) which has been written to death by many
> well-wishing but misinformed non-native historians, one cannot help but
> wonder (and question as many have done) if the Nez Perce (or any native
> people for that matter) can ever represent their own history.

This paragraph could be straightforwardly re-translated to describe works
on Creole languages and Creole cultural phenomena (e.g. Haitian Vodou).

In fact, there is a whole research industry on Creole languages that goes
by the name `de-creolization'. The implication is that Creole languages are
inherently endangered languages as they go down the inevitable path of
extinction as entailed by their `modernization' and `normal-ization'.  The
idea is that Creole speakers wait around for the first occasion to abandon
their native languages in order to adopt (what some view as) the
structurally superior and expressively more adequate European language.
Interestingly, such "imagined (imaginary) pathos" is found among the
best-known Creole `experts'.  In turn, when such "pathos" is shown to be
mythical and/or ideologically-driven, its critiques are labeled as
dangerous nationalists...

I take it that there is much to learn about the "pathos" of academia by
looking jointly at the history of descriptions of Native and Creole
cultures.  In the meantime, confronting these "pathos" heads-on and coming
up with better historical and linguistic accounts is necessary for the
upkeep of Native and Creole people's educational, social and personal
opportunities.

I myself have been learning a great deal by being on this list, much of it
has been a direct inspiration for framing my current thoughts on Creole
languages and cultures and Creole-related research.

Thank you!

                                 -michel.
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MIT Linguistics & Philosophy, 77 Massachusetts Ave, Cambridge MA 02139-4307
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