Schooling, Immersion Programs Help Save Endangered Languages (fwd)

[phil cash cash]

Schooling, Immersion Programs Help Save Endangered Languages

By Art Chimes
San Francisco, California
28 February 2007
http://www.voanews.com/english/AmericanLife/2007-02-27-voa51.cfm

[photo inset - Wita, a Trio shaman of Kwamalasamutu Village, Suriname
with a staff and a plant in his hands]

There are nearly 7,000 languages on Earth, but experts say about half of
them are endangered, meaning only a small and declining number of often
elderly people speak the language. Major world and national languages
crowd out indigenous ones, and it's estimated that more languages
became extinct in the 20th century than at any other time in history.

For scientists, the loss of a language represents a very real loss of
knowledge. And that knowledge could save lives at a time when drug
companies search tropical forests for biologically-based medical
breakthroughs, and many if not most plant and animal species remain
unknown to Western science.

[photo inset - Professor David Harrison of Swarthmore College decries
the loss of scientific knowledge when languages die]

At last week's meeting of the American Association for the Advancement
of Science, David Harrison of Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania said
saving endangered languages could help scientists harness knowledge
that might otherwise be lost.

"Vast domains of knowledge about meteorology, mathematics, weather
cycles, plant and animal behavior, how to domesticate plants and
animals, how to control genetic stocks exists," Harrison stressed. "It
is out there, it is fragile, it is very rapidly eroding."

[photo inset - Revitalizing a dying language can help heal a community
according to Daryl Baldwin, an expert on the Myaamia language and
culture that once thrived in the American Midwest[

When a language goes, so does culture. The Miami are a native people
that once thrived in the American Midwest. Three centuries ago, their
Myaamia language was widely spoken. But the language began to die out
as the tribe was forced from its ancestral homeland and its members
became more assimilated in mainstream America. It was essentially
extinct by the 1960s. However, the language had been well documented,
and Daryl Baldwin and his Myaamia Project have been working to
revitalize both the language and the culture it represents.

"For communities that have been socially disrupted, the language
provides an avenue by which they can mend and heal," said Baldwin,
"because embodied in that language is a great deal of information about
how we relate to each other and how we relate to our landscape. And so
language revitalization has been incredibly enriching. It's been
daunting. Language loss is about social change; language reclamation is
also about social change."

[photo inset - Hawaiian culture thrives but the language is threatened
says William Wilson of the University of Hawaii]

Revitalizing an endangered language is never easy. In Hawaii, the U.S.
state that was an independent monarchy until 1893, the culture is
strong, but the language has faced severe challenges, such as a law
that prohibited teaching it in schools until two decades ago. William
Wilson of the University of Hawaii says it is important to expose young
Hawaiians to the language, and the subject now is taught to school
children.

"So that's increasing the numbers of speakers," Wilson said. "In 1986,
when we started, there were less than 50 children in all of Hawaii that
could speak Hawaiian fluently. Now we have about 2,000 in our school
system. More importantly, there are actually families that speak
Hawaiian at home. And so we've started infant-toddler programs, where
those children can come together before they go to preschool."

[photo inset - Leanne Hinton of the University of California says 1:1
intensive programs are preserving native languages in her state]

On the mainland, California has a tremendous heritage of language
diversity, with as many as 100 native languages having been spoken
there. Many are now endangered or gone entirely. Leanne Hinton of the
University of California says one-on-one intensive programs are helping
sustain threatened languages.

"One of them is the master-apprentice language learning program, which
pairs the last speakers of native languages with younger members of the
tribe who want to learn it. And we teach them the fundamentals of
language immersion, and they are supposed to spend 10 or 20 hours a
week just living their lives together in the language and without
recourse to English," Hinton explained.

Despite efforts like these, indigenous and other minority languages will
continue to be threatened, and many likely will die off. But aggressive
programs can help ensure the survival of other languages, along with
the knowledge and culture they embody.