ELL: l'arbre croche and odaw

[Benjamin Troutman]

I didn't expect such an outpouring of "re:"s to my initial request.
Thank you for the information and opinions (however furious).

Here in Harpor Springs, Michigan there is a building that has a 170
year history.  It is the Holy Childhood School, once a boarding house
for many Native Ottawan (=Odawan) children.  First built by the Jesuits,
pasted on to the Franciscans, and then in 1886 the School Sisters of
Notre Dame arrived in Harpor with the mission of educating Natives.  I
believe it was while the Jesuits were running the show that the kids
were learning not only french but publishing there own newspaper in
the Odawa variation of Ojibway!  What's with Anglophonic
linguaphobia?  Unfortunately, as was the case with US educational policy on
language use in schools before the turn of the century up thru the '60s
(e.g. good ol' Sheldon Jackson's achievements in Alaska's pan
handle!) when English entered the classrooms the Odawa
was expelled.  However, from brief conversations with a few locals (non
-Native though) and I have yet to come across stories of any
mistreatment of the children if they DID speak Odawa as boarders.  It's
fairly safe to predict that Odawa is un-"safe" (Krauss 199?) from an
observer's quick glance.  I hope to find out more about its situation
and, most importantly, how the Natives of Northern Michigan feel about
its moribundity.

If you are curious about Native Americans in Northern Michigan as I am
I whole-heartedly recommend the quick book "The Crooked Tree: Indian
Legends of Northern Michigan" by John C. Wright.

As a side note for further discussion, I was reminded this evening of
America's "efficiency"-mentality.  If it's not efficient, why do it?  This, of
course, has spilled over into language policy.  How diluted our
tongues will sound as more and more children speak an army-backed
language rather than the one their grandmother spoke.  Just yesterday
there were passionate pleas to improve the conditions of the elephants
performing in circuses (or would it be circa???...sorry :)) but what of
the handfull of speakers of certain North American languages?  How many
undergraduate linguistic curriculi REQUIRE a field methods class, an
endangered languages lecture, a language policy one, etc.?  We've had
almost fifty years of the MIT laboratory setting of English, right?
and for what?  to see a discipline's own material being rapidly lost
for the sake of I-bars after I-bars?

all the best,

Benjamin D. Troutman


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