Reflections from the 2011 Athabaskan/Dene Languages Conference by Barbra Meek (fwd)

[Phillip E Cash Cash]

Blog article reposted here with permission from First Peoples Blog
http://www.firstpeoplesnewdirections.org/blog/

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Reflections from the 2011 Athabaskan/Dene Languages Conference by Barbra Meek

July 20th, 2011 - Posted by Abby Mogollón

Earlier this month, anthropologist Barbra Meek returned to Whitehorse,
Yukon, the community where she conducted research for the book, “We
Are Our Language” (University of Arizona Press). Meek was a
participant in the Athabaskan/Dene Languages Conference, and she sent
us this report from this dynamic event, which brought together
linguists, language educators, elders and Yukon community members:

As a kind of “coming home” and a public opportunity to share my work
and receive feedback from the aboriginal language teachers and
personnel with whom I’d worked, I recently attended the
Athabaskan/Dene Languages Conference hosted by the Council for Yukon
First Nations in Whitehorse (YT., Canada).  Extraordinarily well
attended, it was a fabulous three-day affair, uniting linguists,
aboriginal language educators, elders, and the Yukon community.  The
organizers (Wanda, Pat, Sharon, Jo-ella, Daniel, Siri and James)
facilitated the inclusion of multiple voices and perspectives on
Athabaskan/Dene linguistics, revitalization, and education, including
educators from the Chief Atahm School, who presented on the various
techniques used in their Secwepemc language immersion approach and the
challenges they faced creating their curriculum and continuing to
persevere.

Focused around the theme of narrative – from telling, using, and
recording stories to analyzing the structural elements narrators use
to indicate temporality, intertextuality, and evidentiality (as well
as generic distinctions across texts) – the role of oral-based texts
was central to the entire conference.  The holistic nature of this
conference’s approach to narrative appeared across several domains.
For the more formal linguistic papers, the grammatical elements and
related typological distinctions framed the majority of these
analyses.  These analyses clearly brought out the structural
complexity of what might seem – at least in English translation – a
simple tale about raven or personal reflection on a historical moment.

As highlighted by Dr. Julie Cruikshank in her keynote address and
reinforced by the more education-oriented talks, these oral texts
provide the foundational knowledge for social and cultural
understanding in much the same way that, for example, Western literary
traditions reflect and move beyond the moment of their authorship.  To
paraphrase Dr. Cruikshank, these narratives are the “classics,” as
complex as a Shakespearean sonnet or a poem by Edna St. Vincent
Millay. Part of the profoundness of this observation becomes apparent
in relation to language endangerment and revitalization (see
Dauenhauer and Dauenhauer 1998) where what’s at stake in language loss
is not only the grammar of a language, but the intertextual life of
the language, intertextual links entailed, managed and transformed
through the reproduction and circulation of these classics.

This event illustrated this observation across a range of creative
expressions, from the talks themselves and the introductions by the
conference emcees to the joking and storytelling during breaks and the
Olympic-performing Tlingit dancers as well as the child dancers on the
last day.  Rarely does a conference bridge so many different genres or
modes of expression, but this one celebrated all of this.

Athabaskan and other Indigenous languages were pervasively spoken
throughout, younger and older generations both used these languages
overcoming any shyness or reservations they may have held. First
Nations and non-First Nations peoples spoke to and questioned each
other overcoming a history of paternalism and marginalization, and on
the second day of the conference, the elders reframed the event after
an elder presented on her community’s naming practices. Highlighted by
this elder, Mrs. Leda Jules, and echoed by many members of the
audience, naming has never just been about referring to a single
individual, but has always entailed both the history indexed by the
name and the future it portends for the so-named novice.

These moments bring alive and reinforce the significance of our
languages and language practices, not only as a form of communication
but as being and becoming in the world.  On the long flight to
Whitehorse (two flights, in fact), I came across a quote in Harper’s
Magazine from a famous Senegalese filmmaker, Ousmane Sembène, who
observed that “[y]ou don’t tell a story for revenge but to find your
place in the world” (cited in Vourlias 2011:41).  This insight
pinpoints the significance of what we do as language preservers,
revivalists, or recreationists – helping us, and others, find or
perhaps even transform our place in the world and thus the world
itself.

Barbra A. Meek is an associate professor of anthropology and
linguistics at the University of Michigan. In addition to conducting
her research, she has helped organize and produce Kaska language
workshops and teaching materials. Her book We Are Our Language: An
Ethnography of Language Revitalization in a Northern Athabaskan
Community is available now from the University of Arizona Press. The
book will be available in paperback in spring 2012.