traditions of assimilation...

[Jimmy/ Chun]

Hi all,

This is my first time writing here, so please allow me to 
introduce myself.

I am a Siraya from Taiwan, now a PhD student under Dr Hardman's 
supervision at UF. I work at revitalizing Siraya language that is 
noted as extinct in Ethnologue (Ethnologue also uses Chinese terms 
that actually means "savage" in its Siraya entry). I work with a 
group of Sirayan people that are also Presbyterian; with the 
little re-constructed mother tongue, they have written a few 
Christian songs in addition to some folk songs with Austronesian 
tunes in Siraya. I enjoy the fact that we now have songs to sing. 
In the songs we sing the name of Alid...when singing Alid, I think 
of the Sirayan Goddess-mother, although my folks use it to refer 
to the Western God/Lord.

I love this thread and I'd like to contribute to the discussion of 
"tradition of assimilation" by recommending a movie called 
"Hawaii" made in 1966, directed by George Roy Hill. It's a looong 
movie and makes me sad, but it has given me plenty to think.

Also I very much agree with Mark Sicoli that the concept of "one 
nation = one language" has a lot to do with European nation-state 
building. But I'd just like to point out that such belief has a 
Chinese root as well. Since as early as 259 BC, the Qin King in 
China was already obsessed with the notion of a huge, unified, 
China Kingdom that spoke and wrote (!) only one language. This 
Chinese nationalist ideology has informed the communists in China 
as well as the Chinese Nationalists in Taiwan and led to many 
Mandarin-only (commonly thought to be "the Chinese language" 
today) policies. By 1930's the Japanese colonializers in Taiwan 
still documented about 30 indigenous Austronesian languages spoken 
around the island; now we have speakers for only about 13 of them 
and two peoples (Siraya and Bazai) are trying to re-constitutes 
their lost mother tongues (mostly based on written documents -- 
17th century land contracts and bibilical stuffs [!!] left by the 
Dutch missionaries). Luckily (??) I can't recall any Taiwanese or 
Chinese politician talking about us having a "tradition of 
assimilation" :)


Jimmy (or "Chun Huang," my registered Chinese name, which is again 
a case of assimilation. Siraya used to be matri-focal and people 
used to have only first names, but the Chinese colonial government 
has assigned Chinese last names to us based on fathers being the 
head of a household).





On Sat Feb 16 17:03:15 EST 2008, David Lewis 
<David.Lewis at GRANDRONDE.ORG> wrote:

> 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
> 
>