30.1468, Language, Revitalization, and Documentation... in the Movies!

Wed Apr 3 23:31:51 UTC 2019

LINGUIST List: Vol-30-1468. Wed Apr 03 2019. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 30.1468, Language, Revitalization, and Documentation... in the Movies!

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Date: Wed, 03 Apr 2019 19:31:21
From: LINGUIST List [linguist at linguistlist.org]
Subject: Language, Revitalization, and Documentation... in the Movies!

Dear LINGUIST List Readers,

Hello again! Last year we wrote about language in pop culture, the movies, and
other media, and this year we are writing about language documentation and
revitalization in honor of our theme of renewal for the 2019 Fund Drive. I...
I don't have a lot of experience in this area of field linguistics, if I'm
going to be honest. (My fieldwork courses start next semester, okay?)

Anyway so I'm going to talk about... language in the movies again! This time,
language revitalization and documentation in the movies!

And the minute I started thinking about this blog post, it occurred to me that
language documentation and revitalization are not really well-represented
topics in most pop culture, film, and other media. The example that came to
mind first was 2017's Arrival, in which linguist Louise Banks performs a
variation of Ken Pike's monolingual demonstration in her efforts to bridge the
language gap between humans and aliens. But surely we as a culture have more
to say about our own human language gaps, right? As linguists, you are all
aware of how fast the world's languages are becoming endangered, in part as a
consequence of increased globalization and the influence of a small handful of
dominant cross-cultural linguae francae. So why isn't this global
phenomenon--crisis even--getting more attention?

In the movies, most instances of "language documentation" occur when explorers
or even colonizers encounter indigenous peoples, and it's more an instance of
the explorers learning the language than an instance of someone trying to
write it down to ensure its survival. A quick trip down Google lane yields, of
course, The Linguists, a documentary about two linguists traveling to various
homes of endangered languages and trying to find native speakers, sometimes
when there are as few as nine or ten living speakers.

However, things are looking up for endangered languages in film--by now you
may have heard of a Canadian movie that was made entirely in an endangered
language, a film that aims to be a preservation effort for its
language-subject. It's language documentation/revitalization as art. Which is
pretty cool. Check it out:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/mar/28/canadian-film-made-in-haida-lang
uage-spoken-by-just-20-people-in-the-world

The movie is called SGaawaay K'uuna, ('Edge of the Knife') and it is performed
in Haida, a language spoken fluently by just twenty speakers, the Haida people
of British Columbia. According to the article linked above, Haida is a
language isolate.

Director Gwaai Edenshaw says he is unwilling to accept Haida as somehow
unavoidably moribund--and in my experience, many linguists agree. It's not
over for any endangered or sleeping language. Personally, it seems to me like
creating Haida art, Haida film, is one of the best ways to vitalize interest
in the preservation of Haida against the overwhelming odds of globalization.
Read about the film in the link above--we think it's something linguists the
world over would love to see! It premiers in the UK in April.

But don't let the use of Haida come off like a gimmick--check out the trailer
to see how gorgeous the cinematography is (those sweeping landscape shots!)
and what a strong sense of mood and place the film seems to have... and to
hear some spoken Haida: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DnbOw5Nuq2U

The film premiers in the UK in April, but I wasn't able to determine a premier
date for viewers from other parts of the world during my brief Google tour.
Nonetheless, I'm going to keep my eye out for showings in my area, and I think
all linguists should find a way to support the production of more
Haida-language media by finding out where they can see SGaawaay K'uuna!

--

Thanks again for reading our blog, and for all your support of the LINGUIST
List throughout the years! As you know, the 2019 Fund Drive is under way and
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https://funddrive.linguistlist.org/donate/!

Thanks so much for all the support over the last 29(!) years--

The LL Team

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