indigenous language survival

[Peter J Keegan]

Thanks Richard for you comments

Maori doesn't face immediate extinction as the Waitangi Tribunal report 
seems to imply.
We should always be careful when reading these types of reports and 
think carefully about
who wrote them and what their real aims might be.

The same Tribunal make important recommendations back in 1986, then led to
a Maori Language Act, Maori Language Commission and many other indirect 
benefits.

There is real concern though, about the decreasing numbers of students 
entering
kohanga reo and other forms of Maori-medium education, and that too many
in the Maori community just don't care enough about the language to actually
make the effort to learn it.

The report does little to highlight the many gains that have made in 
Maori language
revitalization and I am sure that Maori is not too much different from 
many other
language revitalization programmes in that the way forward is never easy,
often one step forward and two steps back.

I'll keep speaking Maori to my daughter, wife, whanau (family) members
and friends that speak the language and encourage others to start learning.

Peter J Keegan (Auckland, New Zealand/Aotearoa)

(Waikato-Maniapoto/Ngati Porou  (-tribes I belong to))


On 22/10/2010 5:39 a.m., Richard Zane Smith wrote:
> Kweh all,
> just some thoughts....
> I know linguists can't hep but be linguists, as artists can't help but 
> be artists.
> but when i read about the threat of EVEN the Maori language extinction,
> it really got me thinking.
> Many are busy creating indigenous words for NON-indigenous/thought 
> paradigms/.
> At an immersion school in Aotearoa I visited, students science classes 
> were being taught
>  with a myriad of NEW designed Maori words to describe atoms,particles 
> etc...
> in other words "things" that many of our indigenous cultures never 
> /broke down/
> in a traditional context other than perhaps stories about "how things 
> are all connected"
>
> Might this forced and continual translation of noun based colonized 
> terms into indigenous terms
> be actually turning our languages into "*codes*" to basicly think 
> /*the same thoughts*/
> but to represent them as indigenous characters and sounds?
> Are we paradigm shifting basic-thought pattern of OUR languages when 
> we do this?
>
> Ok, now we will all have gadgets to text message in 
> Cherokee,Swahili,Chinese, English,Mohawk
> but what if the whole IDEA of text messaging isn't weighed 
> "culturally" and every NEW gadget is now "NDignized" just like we have 
> Nammy Awards instead of Grammy Awards, Native RAP version of Ghetto 
> RAP, An NDN version of every WHITE thing the dominant (even 
> parasitical) culture comes up with. What are we doing? Are we thinking 
> about what we are doing?
> Aren't we the people who are supposed to lead the way to LIFE 
> sustainability?
> The dominant system of conquest is still marching, and its cancerous 
> to our planet.
>
> We KNOW in our minds that a language survives/thrives only in 
> /context/ of its own healthy culture.But unless children grow up 
> imbedded in Wyandot culture(life/ways),
> going to school and learning to speak Wyandot does not a Wyandot make.
> They are only speaking Wyandot code .*/the new code talkers?/*
> If this is true, dying languages are only PART or symptomatic of a 
> bigger problem.
> Our minds are changing, our children's minds are changing, and if we 
> want them to be strong in their languages they are going to need *a 
> whole lot more* than Wyandot language classes.
> or free gadgets to do Wyandot texting.
>
> The reason the languages are dying is because there is a *replacement 
> *of thinking.
> Its EASIER ,maybe even more appropriate? to use English when students 
> are dissecting
> a frog because its the nature of that kind of thinking to dissect 
> things and solve problems by taking things apart.  Is that OUR way?
> When we Wyandotized the process of dissecting a frog, we lose Wyandot 
> paradigm.
> If you dissect a frog and learn science that can cure cancer thats 
> wonderful,
> Kids should learn that ALSO.
> but I'm just wondering the benefit of mixing.blending thinking paradigms.
>
> Traditionalist always tell me - ceremony has to stay OUT of politics
> for that very reason...the various "thinkings" don't mix well.
>
> I  heard just at ONLA from a Cherokee language teacher in Talequah
> that a modern childs attention span is now *9 seconds .*
> *why? **Its the average time it takes to send a text message.*
> what are we doing folks? Are we simply getting on board this Titantic
> because OUR language needs to be on the ship??
> Maybe we need to strengthen our cultural roots/languages/arts/communities
> and be VERY selective/careful about introducing all these new shiny toys?
> Shall we talk about the addiction of/*"the new"*/ ?
> uuuh ...some other time...
>
> just some thoughts, i don't know the answers
> I'm someone who still plays in the mud ....for a living!
>
> Richard Zane Smith
> Wyandotte Oklahoma
>
>


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