Language Testimony

[cashcash at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU]

Dear ILAT,

Along with this article is a webcast (.ram file) of the recent Senate
hearing that is avilable for viewing.

http://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2003/05/20_lang.shtml

Phil Cash Cash
UofA, ILAT


Quoting Andre Cramblit <andrekar at NCIDC.ORG>:

> Professor backs "survival schools" for Native American languages
>
> Kathleen Maclay, Media Relations | 20 May 2003
>
> BERKELEY ? Native American language "survival schools" must have
> long-term
> funding to save these languages from extinction, University of
> California,
> Berkeley, professor Leanne Hinton recently told the Senate Committee
> on
> Indian Affairs.
>
> "Native American languages are in a major state of decline. The
> present and
> future language survival schools can turn this sad state of affairs
> around
> for at least some languages," Hinton said after testifying May 15 in
> support of legislation proposed by Sen. Daniel Inouye, D-Hawaii, to
> provide
> long-term funding for language survival schools.
>
> These preschool and other schools offer a complete education through
> instruction in a Native American language, with the purpose of
> strengthening, revitalizing or reestablishing a Native American
> language
> and culture.
>
> Throughout her career, Hinton, a professor of linguistics and chair
> of the
> UC Berkeley Linguistics Department, has worked with Native American
> languages and on issues relating to language revitalization. She is
> the
> incoming president of the Society for Linguistic Anthropology, and
> hosts
> the biennial "Breath of Life" conference at UC Berkeley to revive
> languages
> for tribes with no speakers left.
>
> Of 85 indigenous languages in California, Hinton told the committee,
> 35
> have no speakers left and the remaining 50 are spoken only by a
> handful of
> elders.
>
> "Along with their languages are being lost eloquent speech-making and
> story-telling skills, powerful oral literature, philosophical
> frameworks,
> environmental knowledge, and diverse world views," Hinton testified.
>
> Also testifying at the Washington, D.C., hearing was Mary Hermes, an
> associate professor of education at the University of Minnesota who
> has two
> children in an Ojibwe language immersion school in Hayward, Wis.
> Hermes
> noted research showing that Native American children ? like
> African-American children ? have long been given the message that
> they can
> be either a Native American or a smart, educated person, but they
> can~Rt be
> both.
>
> Language can be the key to reconciling these two identities, Hermes
> said.
> By using indigenous languages for instruction in schools, children no
> longer see a conflict between education and Native identity.
>
> "For these endangered indigenous languages, the children come to
> school
> already knowing English ? they have learned it at home from their
> parents,
> from television, from their peers, and from virtually every
> experience in
> their lives involving speech," Hinton testified. "The survival
> schools
> level the playing field."
>
> A Hawaiian contingent at the committee hearing said that not a single
> child
> has dropped out of Hawaiian language survival schools before
> graduation in
> the 15 years the highly successful program has been in operation
> there. The
> program~Rs graduates boast an 85 percent acceptance rate at colleges
> and
> universities, and one is attending Stanford University in the fall.
>
> The 1992 Native American Languages Act (NALA) established funding for
> tribes to develop language revitalization programs. A number of
> successful
> language survival programs were set up, partially funded by the
> Administration for Native Americans, which handles NALA funds. Due to
> NALA~Rs limited budget, however, schools generally can only be funded
> for
> about three years.
>
> "The challenge is to find long-term funding for these schools, and
> that is
> the major issue that S 575 addresses," Hinton told the Committee on
> Indian
> Affairs.
>
> "Long ago, previous congressional acts devoted enormous efforts to
> the
> schools that were charged with the eradication of Native American
> languages
> and cultural traditions," she testified. "Now in this hopefully wiser
> time,
> it behooves the Congress to devote an equivalent amount of funds to
> help
> indigenous peoples retain the languages that we erased from their
> lives."
>
> Inouye expects his bill to emerge from committee and reach the Senate
> floor
> for a vote sometime in July. To learn more about the proposed
> legislation,
>