NATIONAL: National Indigenous Languages Survey Report 2005

[Cunliffe D J (Comp)]

Doh - managed to send this to an individual and not the list - wondered
where it had gone!

Hi All,

I agree with Claire that "First Nations" is also problematic (and again
a term I would personally associate with American use). Not only is the
concept of "nation" a tricky one, the idea of "first" is difficult!
There is also often not a neat mapping between nations and languages.

I think this discussion all points to the very local nature of some of
these terms and definitions. A lot of these seem to work reasonably well
in their local context, but become problematic when we try to apply them
to other contexts or to group them under some common term.

Mia also raises the interesting point - what do we call the other
language - dominant, state, official, colonial, majority, not-regional,
non-endangered, non-heritage, subsequent nation...

Again there are a lot of different concepts here, some referring to
legal status, some to numbers of speakers, some with reference to a
particular geographical region, and so on. Languages such as Romani pose
some interesting challenges with regards to attaching labels (hmmm...
back to labellers again!).

--Mia wrote--
I see the issue as one of equity. We should speak the truth, which is
NOT that the country was discovered by Columbus who was the first person
to see this unoccupied land, but that millions of people lived here, had
for millennia, and that people from England, France and Spain came here,
killed as many as they could, destroyed the buffalo which had supplied
food, clothing and shelter, and spread disease by handing out blankets
infected with smallpox. (The Army did this deliberately, and documents
still exist that document both the intent and the action).
--

As the risk of being slightly mischievous - surely everyone knows that
America was discovered by the Welsh prince Madoc (Madog or Madawg) ap
Owain Gwynedd in 1170 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prince_Madog). Also
it wasn't just the English I'm sure there were some Scots, Welsh and
Irish in there somewhere too (why are we always singled out?!) of course
plenty of other European nations followed, in fact I heard somewhere
that it was Dutch trappers who introduced scalping into America (might
be untrue). Also I'm pretty sure that the smallpox blankets were handed
out by subsequent nation Americans after the American War of
Independence.

--Mia wrote--
>From what we see on this list, the story here is not very different from
the stories in Canada, in Australia, in New Zealand, in the Soviet
Union, in short, anywhere where Indigenous people lived on land that had
resources someone else wanted for themselves.
--

Of course, most of these were only the most recent waves of colonisation
- lets not forget the Romans, Vikings, Danes, Angles, Saxons, Normans -
and that's just in my small corner of the world! Anyone care to pick a
first nation out of that mess?

I guess this raises the topic of Post-Colonial theory - I know it
exists, but I am not at all familiar with it - can anyone shed any
light, or point me to some good sources that can be understood by
someone whose background is computing? 

--Claire wrote--
... 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.
--

I agree - I don't have an issue with a language being part of a nations
heritage either (but that might just be a British cultural disposition
towards heritage!) but somehow "heritage language" does suggest "museum
piece" to me, rather than "living language"

--MJ wrote--
I am teaching a course on language and violence, which, of course,
includes a lot of looking at naming.  Mia, Greg and Daniel, may I share
this with my class?
--

Fine by me.

Be seeing you,

Daniel.