NATIONAL: National Indigenous Languages Survey Report 2005

[MJ Hardman]

We are currently involved in a large project to put online the materials
from my old Aymara project (used to teach Aymara for 21 years) as a
self-taught free-access course.  We use the term 'heritage learner' to refer
to those who parents or grandparents or ... spoke the language but they do
not and they wish to recovery 'their heritage'.  We are making sure that the
material is accessible to 'heritage learners', i.e. that it can be easily
accessed in internet cafes in the mountains and that the material is
understandable. This seems a little different from the uses I've seen here.

MJ

On 02/03/2006 8:18 AM, "Mia Kalish" <MiaKalish at LEARNINGFORPEOPLE.US> wrote:

> I think Daniel made a very good point about how the what is signified by
> "heritage language" (I tend to call this "the target") changes depending on
> where you are standing. (English spoken in England is an Indigenous
> Language, while in Wales it is not, and if England had colonized Wales, it
> would be a Colonial Language).
> 
> What I hear in this message is the idea that what is signified by the term
> chosen should be constant across all times, places, languages and speakers.
> Was there an objection to the fact that "in Australia, . . . it usually
> refers to immigrant minority languages such as Greek, Italian, Lao and
> Arabic, rather than to Indigenous languages"?
> 
> "Nation" has a lot of connotation here (in the U.S.), because the Tribes who
> have received federal recognition are independent Nations. There are no
> terms without connotations; Barthes wrote the book on this. The questions
> are really about how terms are chosen, applied, used, and referenced.
> 
> There is a debate going on in one of my classes about the terms Latina/o and
> Chicana/o. The professor is white, from LA, and he thinks the terms that
> should be used are what is currently in the literature. The people in the
> class to whom the terms might apply are resisting this. They think that for
> people who are not in the culture to apply terms is inappropriate. They want
> the right to name themselves, and they don't believe they should be
> overridden. The professor is desperate for a "single term" to name "all
> these people". I, of course, am siding with them :-) I drew a line in the
> sand that essentially said that if you don't know Anzaldua inside and out,
> you probably shouldn't be participating in the debate. (Anzaldua discusses
> the issue in very fine detail, while others what a quick, simple label so
> they can get on with extracting and applying characteristics for the
> category).
> 
> Maybe applying a generic term is an attempt to minimize . . . to hide,
> dismiss, make less important something that to many people is crucial. The
> window opened on this point when I tried to place "English" into a category.
> What's English in the US? For some people, it is the "Heritage Language,"
> the language of their uncolonialized forebears. For others, it is the
> "Colonial Language," that which was forced upon them when the English
> colonized the North American continent, and beat out the French and Spanish
> for colonial "rights". (Might makes Right, you know).
> 
> In the class I mentioned previously, we are reading a book about how
> identity is related to "length of time in the US". This is a particularly
> interesting view of US history, which customarily begins in whatever year
> that was when Columbus planted the flag for god and king - or was it Queen -
> Isabella of Spain. This particular version begins right after the Treaty of
> Guadalupe Hidalgo in 1848, when the US snatched the Southwest from Mexico.
> What we see in the perception is that there was no 1848, there was no Treaty
> of GH, there was no time when this was Mexico. Mysteriously and
> miraculously, "The Border Was Established" (fanfare please); "Mexicans"
> became "immigrants", and now, people are studying "identity formation on the
> border" 'as if' that border had been cast in concrete at the time of the Big
> Bang.  . . . And almost no one thinks this is weird. Almost no one looks at
> how the political changes - and scarily enough, attendant physical changes,
> in case no one has heard about some expensive, impractical idea to build a
> fence along the border to curtail traffic by all those "nasty immigrants" -
> to resume, how these political and physical changes affect the people. No
> one has asked, How does this change look in the eyes, minds and hearts of
> the people? It's more like, Quick! Apply this label, so we can get on about
> identifying the category.
> 
> . . . so I guess in summary, there is a lot more to naming than picking a
> label. And I suspect if we scratch a little deeper, we will find the ideas
> of "who is human," popularized by Galton and cronies, informing the process,
> as for example in the battle we have had here about "Indian Mascots".
> 
> Mia
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Indigenous Languages and Technology [mailto:ILAT at LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU]
> On Behalf Of Anggarrgoon
> Sent: Thursday, February 02, 2006 8:27 PM
> To: ILAT at LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU
> Subject: Re: [ILAT] NATIONAL: National Indigenous Languages Survey Report
> 2005 (fwd)
> 
> Heritage language is also used in Australia, but it usually refers to
> immigrant minority languages such as Greek, Italian, Lao and Arabic,
> rather than to Indigenous languages.
> 
> Mia Kalish wrote:
>> We might suggest First Nations, which also has about it the recognition
>> that the people speaking the language where the first to occupy a
>> particular locale, and that the dominant language is one of colonization.
>> 
> 
> Yes, but 'nation' is also a term with connotations, and in Aboriginal
> Australia there is a lot of tension between an 'Aboriginal' identity and
> a clan or group identity, particularly for younger people who may have
> multiple identities. 'First nations languages' in an Australian context
> would underplay an 'Aboriginal' identity. As I understand it, 'First
> Nations' languages in Canada is tied to a particular federation, and
> does not include all the Indigenous languages of Canada.
> 
>> 
>> I don't think anyone is saying that the languages of the people who were
>> on this continent first are "part of our national heritage". Part of our
>> problem here has been the establishment of the belief that the First
>> Nations now exist only in the Smithsonian. Reports still come in about
>> people who are surprised to find out that there still are "real, live
>> American Indians".
>> 
> 
> I thought we were talking about Australia, and I don't have a problem
> with the phrase that Kemp used about Aboriginal languages being part of
> our heritage. I took it as meaning that they are part of the ingredients
> in the 'cultural melting pot' that contributed to what Australian
> society is today. That is true, and it's all too often forgotten.
> 
> Claire
>