Language Conference]

[Harold Schiffman]

Forwarded From: Abigail Seldin <seldin at sas.upenn.edu>

Native American Languages in Crisis:
Exploring the Interface between Academia, Technology
and Smaller Native Language Communities

to be held at Penn Museum , University of Pennsylvania,
33rd and Spruce Sts
Philadelphia PA
May 2, 3, and 4

Language loss is arguably the most pressing issue faced by contemporary Native
nations within the present borders of the United States. According to surveys
summarized by the Indigenous Languages Institute, 89% of 175 Native
languages in North America are in imminent danger of falling silent because
they are no longer spoken by children. Of the 20 languages still spoken in
Alaska, only two—Central Yupik and St. Lawrence Island Yupik—are being
taught to the next generation. Similarly, in Oklahoma only four of the remaining
23 Native languages are being learned by children in a few traditional homes.
Many of the solutions offered to stop language loss and often supported by
granting agencies promote technological solutions focusing on visual and audio
recording, creating databases, and developing internet and archiving schemes.

But there are significant limitations to the capacity of the
technology to fulfill its
elusive promise, and the effectiveness of these digital tools in producing new
fluent speakers is not very clear. And, importantly, there are under-considered
questions relating to the foreign and artificial nature of the digital
media itself,
particularly in light of Indigenous self-understandings regarding the power and
proper usages of language. What is the message borne by depersonalized digital
media, and does such media carry corrosive influences that work against the
intended goal of perpetuating an Indigenous language, complete with its ancient
ways of understanding the world?
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