women as keepers of the language

[Richard Zane Smith]

I imagine wherever patriarchalism has been forceful and domineering,
we have a raw-nervy sensitivity to gender issues that won't be felt within
a culture
that has not had the gender dominance problems "western culture" has had.
It might even be that some understandings of "fairness" are going to vary
from culture to culture.
Some might be content where we would be uncomfortable...or even outraged.

its always enlightening to discover cultures that have much less gender
inequalities.
1000 year sustainable cultures really need a lot more serious
investigation!!

-Richard



On Tue, May 8, 2012 at 3:51 PM, Mark Sicoli <msicoli at alaska.edu> wrote:

> Tammy,  It's actually this article by Barbra Meek that I was thinking of:
>
> Barbra Meek "Respecting the language of elders: Ideological Shift and
> Linguistic Discontinuity in a Northern Athapascan Community" Journal of
> Linguistic Anthropology 2007, 17(1) 23-43
>
>
>  "According to the Kaska Tribal Council (1997), there are approximately
> nine dialects. Defining a family’s dialect is complicated. In most cases,
> the family dialect is the one spoken by the mother, following a matrilineal
> pattern. A woman’s husband often speaks his wife’s own dialect along with
> his own mother’s family dialect (or language), and the children are exposed
> to both parents’ linguistic varieties." p26
>
>
>  She wasn't making the point that men don't speak correctly but was rather
> reporting on criticisms community members were making on the speech
> features students were learning in the school. For example, a student
> learns to speak like a teacher who has different dialect features than
> his/her own mother/grandmother:
>
> "There were instances of correction as well, mostly directed at a person’s
> word choice or pronunciation. Given that word choice and pronunciation were
> the most salient indices of family dialects, an act of correction signaled
> that a person hadn’t spoken in an appropriate ancestral variety. This
> sociolinguistic correspondence also emerged in discussions about the public
> schools’ Kaska language curriculum, where children were not always being
> taught their own family’s dialect. Unsurprisingly, students were taught the
> dialect of their teacher, and this caused some parents to complain to the
> administration. Correction also appeared when a person spoke a non-familial
> variety." p27
>
> I think this is interestingly relevant to your original question, though
> the thread has turned in other directions that I think are less
> productive.  Surely it varies from community to community and situation to
> situation who is involved with/motivated to work for language maintenance
> and revitalization.
>
> Best wishes,
> Mark
>
>
> On Tue, May 8, 2012 at 11:24 AM, Mark Sicoli <msicoli at alaska.edu> wrote:
>
>> Hi Tammy,
>>
>> Take a look at Barbra Meek's book *We are our language: An ethnography
>> of language revitalization in a Northern Athabaskan community.    *Working
>> with Kaska Athabaskans in the Yukon, she describes (in part) dialect
>> features that are matrilineal with "correct" speech for one (male of
>> female) being their mother's and grandmother's way of speaking.
>>
>> All the best,
>> Mark
>>
>> --
>> Dr. Mark Sicoli
>> Assistant Professor
>> University of Alaska, Fairbanks
>>
>> Department of Anthropology
>> 310 Eielson Building
>> P.O. Box 757720
>> Fairbanks, AK  99775-7720
>> U.S.A.
>> Phone:   (907) 474-6884
>> Fax:       (907) 474-7453
>>
>>
>> On Tue, May 8, 2012 at 11:13 AM, Tammy DeCoteau <tdc.aaia at verizon.net>wrote:
>>
>>> Does anyone know of any writing that talks about women being the keepers
>>> of the language and it being the mothers and grandmothers that pass
>>> language down?  There is a mother's day event at which they are asking for
>>> our program to have a booth and I would like to create a handout and hope
>>> to quote something.
>>>
>>> Tammy DeCoteau
>>> AAIA Native Language Program
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>
>
> --
> Dr. Mark Sicoli
> Assistant Professor
> University of Alaska, Fairbanks
>
> Department of Anthropology
> 310 Eielson Building
> P.O. Box 757720
> Fairbanks, AK  99775-7720
> U.S.A.
> Phone:   (907) 474-6884
> Fax:       (907) 474-7453
>
>


-- 
*

"Think not forever of yourselves... nor of your own generation.

Think of continuing generations of our families,

think of our grandchildren and of those yet unborn,

whose faces are coming from beneath the ground."             The Peacemaker,


 richardzanesmith.wordpress.com

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