traditions of assimilation...

[David Lewis]

I for one appreciate more dialogue about how Christians and other sects have contributed to the assimilation of Native peoples, which in turn has contributed to the extinction or near-extinction of many native languages. I too will use this in my classes.

David G. Lewis
Manager, Cultural Resources Department
Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde




-----Original Message-----
From: Indigenous Languages and Technology on behalf of Mark Sicoli
Sent: Sat 2/16/2008 12:49 PM
To: ILAT at LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU
Subject: Re: [ILAT] traditions of assimilation...
 
Thank you Phil, well said.  The nationalist myth is based on a pervasive
ideology where a single language is taken (or given) as the symbol of a
singular identity.  The one language=one nation association goes back to
nation-state building in Europe and the practices of linguistic
unifications, like in Spain, France, and Italy, and other such places
where vernacular languages were ideologically "erased" in the formation of
national unities.  These served as models for nation building in the
Americas and the ideology is real prominent in Mexico where I work, and
where language shifts from indigenous languages to Spanish are currently
occurring at unprecedented rates.  The same basic ideology is at work
equating one language with one individual, which serves to work against
bilingualism and bilingual education, thus facilitating language
abandonment rather than bilingual maintenance.  For these reasons I agree
that this is a worthwhile discussion for this list.

Mark


On Sat, February 16, 2008 9:02 pm, phil cash cash said:
> For the language advocates (LA) it might be worthwhile to point out these
> "assimilationist" agendas are all founded on a nationalist myth.  In
> today's
> contemporary context, this nationalist myth states that our societies are
> or
> can become linguistically, culturally homogenous.  When in reality, this
> may
> be impossible. 
> And as Richard points out so well, the nationalist myth (in what ever
> manifestation it may take) supports other agendas as well. 
> Phil
> UofA
>
>


-- 
Mark Sicoli Ph.D.
Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics
Postbus 310
6500 AH Nijmegen
The Netherlands

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