A failure of communication

[hzenk at PDX.EDU]

>
> This would not be an issue if some of those who
> insisted that GR is the "gold standard" did not behave
> in a judgemental and contemptuous manner towards those
> who speak other dialects. Being constantly corrected
> on one's diction is tireseome, especially when the
> corrections tend to "drift" over time.
>

So far I've kept my usual low profile when accusations like this surface on the
list.  It's happened enough now, though, that some response seems in order.
So, here's 2 cents of my own (it will be a shorter 2 cents).

One reason I've never tried to respond before to this sort of thing is that
frankly, it's hard for me to understand the complaint.  We involved in the
language program at Grand Ronde have a particular mission:  we're trying to
revive Chinuk Wawa in the form in which it was recorded from previous
generations of Grand Ronde Indians.  And we are a TRIBAL language program:
that is, we are working for the tribe and we are serving the tribe.  While we
welcome any interested non-members, the tribe and its members are what the
language program is really about.  Why would we be interested in
learning "other dialects" to teach, when we have our hands full just trying to
preserve the Chinuk Wawa of Grand Ronde?  (One thing Nadja and some others may
not appreciate is that even THAT is no easy thing to settle.  We have devoted a
great deal of effort to standardization:  smoothing out the variations and
discrepencies between different Grand Ronde speakers, with the object of
facilitating teaching and the development of materials. That in itself can be a
risky business.  Certainly it has been a time-consuming, arduous business.)

Tony and his tribal teachers, Bobby Mercier and Jackie Mercier Whistler, are
conducting both adult and childrens' community classes.  I've been working
every day on an improved and expanded version of the dictionary (many thanks to
Dave Robinson for his close reading of our previous draft, and many valuable
comments).  We're hard at work, and from my perspective, we're just going along
doing our thing--trying to accomplish our mission.  We don't mean to exclude
anyone, it's just that our focus is the local community and the particular form
(or forms) of Chinuk Wawa that were spoken there.  People who are not Grand
Ronde tribal members are welcome to learn "our" Chinuk Wawa too, if they are
interested.  The Monday night adult class is open to anyone who is interested
enough to come.

I wonder if part of what's going on with these accusations is a disjunct
between different notions of what "Chinook" is.  While Chinuk Wawa is no one's
tribal language, at Grand Ronde it was something very much like a de facto
tribal language--it was the community "Indian language" of a dozen-plus tiny
tribal groups, all plunked down together in one small mountain valley.  All the
elderly speakers I worked with in the 80s had learned and used the language in
the home, most of them from childhood.  It is clearly related to the "Chinook"
of the nineteenth-century dictionaries and the settlers, but it's not the same
thing, either.  Those other "Chinooks" are interesting, too.  At the
moment, though, I find myself pretty single-mindedly occupied with Grand
Ronde.  So there it is, "singleminded"--now to me, that sounds better
than "judgmental and contemptuous."  End of 2 cents.  BastEn Henry