Module 10: 'Like Dropping a Bomb on the Louvre'

'Why Save a Language' analysis and response:

Identity, knowledge, and heritage are lost when a native peoples’ language dies. In the video ‘Why Save a Language’ the importance of language to the Native American people is widely discussed. It is a well known fact that the languages of the indigenous peoples are in fact dissipating rapidly, with 300 already categorized as extinct (video).  The continuous loss of language earlier in the 20th century was because of the schools set in place for Native American children. All of these such schools basically followed the philosophy of creating a monolingual America, one advocating for the use of English. One Native expresses: “speak english or become less patriotic,” and that is exactly what it felt like. The government believed all Native Americans were uncivilized savages and they wanted the natives to be like white folk. Abuse was the norm in the schools for American Indians. Much knowledge was lost because kids were separated from their parents to learn causing a sort of psychological damage. The schools would force the kids to stop speaking their own language and when they tried to be their own heritage they were punished so severely, even some punished to death. Parents began to stop teaching their kids to speak it because they didn't want their kids to feel the same pain. This caused a cycle of languages becoming taught less and less in the household. Overall, there was a major human rights violation because language holds the key to much understanding of one’s heritage; so if one cannot speak their own language, then one’s human rights are violated. 

As the Native Americans continue to lose their languages and constantly fall into a place of confusion, they are stuck wondering who they are. They struggle with knowing their now history, and this is because their language holds the answers to this.  In the video, a man from the Lakota language explains one word brought to the language by the buffalo. He begins by simply stating the word and its meaning. But then, he goes into this extensive story of this particular word. This word is not just a simple noun, but the story of the buffalo comes along with the word. The speaker of the Lakota language experiences the word because of the historical story that goes along with it. This particular language supplies so much more information that english could with a single word. The same goes for environmental landmarks for other languages. If these languages become lost, the meaning of words that even white people use today will be lost, losing an extensive amount of knowledge. Language matters more than to just the head for these people. It matters to the heart, white people don't understand this because English is not endangered. Americans does not have to worry about rediscovering their heritage because it is in all of our history textbooks and we are living in our home. The languages of American Indians have no home to learn about their heritage if their language is lost because of white people. No one deserves to not be able to learn their own heritage. Language is all they have left to understand who they truly are as a single person, and as a people as a whole.

Personally, I think it is important to maintain a good understanding of these languages and save the indigenous languages from extinction because we can obtain so much knowledge that we might not be able to even comprehend without that language. One man in the video mentioned a metaphor about how a language is like a library, and if someone were to burn a library, then millions and millions of pages with knowledge on them would be lost. So if one wouldn’t burn a library, should one let a language with so much knowledge to share die? Every person deserves to be able to look at themselves in the mirror and know what their heritage is, whatever that means to them. Everyone should be able to speak with other humans in their own tongue, because there exists a deeper understanding of each other when speaking to one another in one’s own native tongue. The way the Native American peoples have been treated by the American government in the past is quite horrifying, so if not language for the knowledge that can be maintained and obtained, the least the American government can do is attempt to preserve what is left in the shambles of the native peoples. 

Source: 
Why Save a Language? The Montana Experience. (2006) https://youtu.be/x7BLBUS1IXc

Module 10: 'Like dropping a bomb on the Louvre'

Why Save A Language: The Link Between Culture and Language

            The video “Why Save a Language?” (link in references) displays multiple generations of Native Americans from different tribes discussing how their languages are endangered and the implications of this conundrum. The first aspect I noticed in the video is the passion many of the speakers had for their native languages; some speakers were even getting choked up. Some of the speakers (primarily the younger individuals) were not taught their native languages and this made them feel like they are not as connected with their culture as they could be.

            Particularly in Native Americans, their ancestors passed on stories primarily orally and once a language dies, with no one to speak it these stories die with the language. “It’s like dropping a bomb on the Louvre” (Kenneth Hale). Imagine if numerous nursery rhymes you knew growing up were no longer accessible to your children and grandchildren because they were not taught your language. The culture you experienced growing up would be completely different from that of you children and grandchildren and this would make it harder for you to relate to the younger generations. Since family is extremely important to most people, not being able to connect with older family members is a severe effect of a language dying.

            It is evident that many young Native Americans want to learn the language and culture of their ancestors, however, the ability to learn a language becomes difficult the further away an individual gets from infancy. First, the best time to learn a language and all the associated sounds is during infancy, up until the age of 3. Furthermore, if you were to learn a language in your older years, the best method would be to completely immerse yourself in the language and speak it in everyday situations. A third way to teach a language would be to straight up teach it in school. The problem with my first method is that teaching a child a language requires the parent to be a fluent speaker of the language and with the current generation not being able to speak the language, this is an issue. Potentially, if the grandparent is a speaker of the language, they could teach the baby by only speaking that language around the kid. This creates a problem because if the child only speaks the Indigenous language, then they can only interact with the grandparent and not the parent. As for the second method, it is nearly impossible to immerse yourself in the language if almost every individual in your generation are not speakers of the language. Finally, we come to teaching the language in school. This seems like a great idea, but there’s a huge issue with teachers actually being able to teach the language. Sure, you can get anyone that is fluent in the language to teach a class, but do they really know how to teach? Teaching a language is a difficult task, especially to a group of people who have a different primary language. You can’t just talk at the students in the language, a teacher must teach grammar mechanics which is difficult especially if the teacher hasn’t received any formal training in the language. Here’s a question: Assuming you speak Spanish, could you teach a Spanish speaker English? Sure, you’ve learned English in school, but they skip out on everything you should have learned growing up speaking the language. Things that seem intuitive to you are not to the non-native speaker. The potential solutions I presented to you are only a few of the many possible answers to reviving a dying language and it is more complex than I have presented. It must be a community effort and only by reviving a dying language can all of the culture of the ancestors be passed on to future generations.

References:

Why Save a Language? (2006) https://youtu.be/x7BLBUS1IXc

Module 10: 'Like dropping a bomb on the Louvre'

Language Loss

Evelyn Wicklund

            This unit talked about language loss and how it can be a loss of information, but how exactly does it happen and can it be avoided? Language loss is typically caused from an outside source (Crawford). People generally don’t want to stop speaking their language because it’s part of their culture, identity, and way of life. If a person is forced to stop speaking their language, they lose a sense of who they are. This can cause a language shift. In the videos for this module we learned that when a language shift occurs it can cause parents to stop teaching their children their language out of fear that their children will receive the same bad treatment they received. This means that a language loss needs to happen from within the community (Crawford). If parents didn’t stop teaching their children their native language, the language would be less likely to be lost, less likely for a culture to lose identity. James Crawford suggests this language shift causes cultural values to shift as well (Crawford). Once cultural values begin to shift, the culture as a whole begins to change.

This can be worrisome to linguists and the people who speak an endangered language. Language renewal strategies will then be applied, but if this language renewal comes from an outside source, there is a low chance it will be fruitful (Crawford). Outside help can be helpful, but alone. Nagel states that a number of tribes that have experienced language loss and tried to renew it on their own, it will act as a catalyst to the rejuvenation and a resurgence of their unique identity (Nagel). This revival of an endangered language depends on the whole community to act together. Two ways this could happen would be to teach their native language in their schools on their reservations, and offer classes to adults to learn about their cultural and language as well. Now, this will only work if an indigenous leadership is formed information on what is being done to rejuvenate the language becomes centralized and committed people get involved with sympathetic outsiders (Crawford). The work needs to be centralized in order to see if the tactics being deployed are actually working and if the language is gaining more speakers. People within the cultural also need to work with outsiders because of help getting funding to start programs and to help educators.

If nothing is done, there can be disastrous effects on the people. Loss of identity can cause a lot of stress to build in people of an American Indian community (Nagel). Buildup of stress can cause many physical symptoms to occur such as ulcers, or insomnia. Cultural values and and language should be intertwined, but “For the majority of young Natives today, culture and language have, in fact, been separated. As a result, most of these young people are trying ‘to walk in two worlds’ with only one language” (Cantoni). Feeling internally separated will cause even more stress to the people in these communities. This is why it is imperative that efforts be taken to prevent language loss, not only for the loss of information, but to keep a unique culture and language alive for the people in those communities.

  

References

Gina Cantoni, editor. Stabilizing Indigenous Languages. Flagstaff :Northern Arizona University : [Bilingual/Multicultural Education Program, Center for Excellence in Education [distributor]], 1996. Print.

Crawford, James. "Seven Hypotheses on Language Loss Causes and Cures." (1996).

Nagel, Joane. American Indian ethnic renewal: Red power and the resurgence of identity and culture. Oxford University Press, 1997.

Module 9: Languages in Contact

For Module 9, I thought it would be interesting to talk about Multilingualism and how it relates directly to us in our everyday lives. I will also talk about how Multilingualism has taken a role in Paraguay. We don’t all experience multilingualism, mostly because it isn’t always necessary, but I thought of a few places you can look to see how multilingualism is being used in the U.S. The first one that comes to mind: safety labels. This is a clearly functional multilingualism. In this case, it means that English is the main language (the L1) and Spanish would be a language strictly used to communicate important information (the L2). Again, this is the kind of multilingualism that you might not experience, but if you look, you will find that it is used in many places. In fact, the first two cleaning supplies that I grabbed from my closet both had safety labels with warnings in Spanish. You may not notice it because you don’t need to, but I am almost certain you can find the use of multilingualism right inside your home. Here is the one I found in my house:

It may be hard to see, but there are safety warnings in English and Spanish.

Another place you might find the use of multilingualism is in instruction manuals. Instruction manuals often have English, Spanish, French, and sometimes more languages. Now, you won’t find this in every instruction manual or on every safety label, but I’m willing to bet that if you take a look at a couple, you’ll find this to be true.

Another fascinating look at multilingualism comes from the country of Paraguay. An important distinction to take note of between multilingualism in Paraguay and in the U.S., is that Paraguay is much closer to ambilingualism. This means that in Paraguay, both Guaraní and Spanish are L1 languages. According to a New York Times article, “Paraguay remains the only country in the Americas where a majority of the population speaks one indigenous language: Guaraní” (Romero, 2012). Amazingly, only 5% of the population of Paraguay is Guaraní, yet 90% of the population speak it (Romero, 2012). In Paraguay, there the primary languages are Guaraní and Spanish. Spanish and English likely have a different relationship in Paraguay than English and Spanish have in the U.S., but it is still interesting to see the effects it has on a country. For example, there is a “Spanglish” version of Guaraní and Spanish, which is called Jopara. Jopara is used by most Paraguayans, even if just a little (Bowen & Bowen, 2014). Unfortunately, I can’t go into a Paraguayans house and see if their product labeling use multiple languages, but one thing that is definite, is the affect it has on how they speak (or in what language).

References

Bowen, A. & Bowen, L. (2014) Guarani-Jopara Institute for Missionaries in Paraguay. World Gospel Mission, Inc.

Romero, Simon. 2012. An Indigenous Language With Unique Staying Power. The New York Times.

Module 8 - Nahuatl Speech and Poetry

Nahuatl Speech and Poetry

            Three thousand year ago, there were Mesoamerican civilizations inhabiting central Mexico, the Yucatán Peninsula, Guatemala and many surrounding areas. Those who spoke Nahuatl mainly occupied central Mexico and were known as the Mexica or the Aztec, more commonly. The Aztec empire was the largest in all of Mesoamerica, which stretched from the Gulf Coast to the Pacific (Silver & Miller 1997). While some of the Aztecan language and culture remains a mystery, much has been discovered regarding their use of poetry and storytelling.

            The first introduction to Nahuatl a young Aztec child has is through education. It isn’t quite known about the early life of a child, but sources of later years painted the picture clearer. There were two separate schools: calmecac (religious) or tēlpōchcalli (military). Thecalmecac was only open to children of nobility, with the occasional merchant. This kind of schooling was necessary to gain any form of leadership position inside the empire, such as governors, administrators, lawyers, judges, etc. The young scholars in school would learn sacred verses and the art of writing. If a child’s parents decided to continue their education, they would then enter priesthood. Generally, those who entered priesthood received a fuller education. Each city also had a tēlpōchcalli school, which was open to all boys. It was mandatory for those who could not enter the calmecac. Emphasis in their training was on martial arts and community service. Regardless of the school, however, every boy and girl attended the cuīcalli (song house). Here the children would gather before sunset and learn music, rhetoric, dance and morals (Silver & Miller 1997).

            The Aztec people stressed heavily on how one should behave and have a strong work ethic. For example, in one lecture a nobleman gave his son:

Thou art to speak very slowly, very deliberately; thou art not to speak hurriedly, not to pant, nor to squeak, lest it be said of thee that thou art a groaner, a growler, a squeaker. Also thou art not to cry out, lest thou be known as an imbecile, a shameless one, a rustic, very much a rustic. Moderately, middingly art thou to carry, to emit thy spirit, thy words. And thou art to improve, to soften thy words, thy voice (Silver & Miller 1997, p. 104).

            Most of what the Aztec learned as young children was to moderate all aspects of behavior, such as dress, manner of walking, speech, eating, etc. This falls under the genre of oratory or moral instruction—or huehuetla?tōlli (words of the ancient ones) in Nahuatl. Another example of this comes from the speech given after a new ruler had spoken to the city. The speech is far too long to reciprocate in this post, but the priests would first introduce the ruler as a mighty person, one capable of great wonders. However, when the new king spoke afterwards, he would have a sense of modesty, as if he had no right to have this title.

Perhaps thou hast mistaken me for another, I who am a commoner; I who am a laborer. In excrement, in filth hath my lifetime been—I who am unreliable; I who am of filth, of vice. And I am an imbecile. Why? For what reason? It is perhaps my desert, my merit that thou takest me from the excrement, from the filth, that thou placest me on the reed mat, on the reed seat (Silver & Miller 1997, p. 106).

            Xōchitl (poetry) was an integral part of Nahuatl society. It was sung with a drum and sometimes a flute, and the topics ranged from nature to religion. The following example was written from a foreign diplomat, who was traveling from the mountains to the capital city:

I climb; I reach the height.

The huge blue-green lake

Now quiet, now angry,

Foams and sings among the rocks…

Flowery water, green-stone water

Where the splendid swan

With its rippling feathers

Calling swims to and fro.

(Silver & Miller 1997, p. 106)

            From this poem, the Aztecs valued a “flowery” language, especially if it was in the style of song or poetry. Flowers were often added to Nahuatl scrolls if the writing was a poem or song. They produced flowery speech by using a grammatic device called reverential. This is when the speaker is to show special respect to the hearer. It basically adds a meaning of something being holy or honored. For example, ta?-tli(father) can be changed to ta?-tzin-tli (honored father) or coco-tli (turtle dove) becomes coco?-tzin-tli (beloved turtle dove) (Silver & Miller 1997, p. 154).

            Another device the Aztecs used was the use of doublets, the pairing of words or phrases in which the meaning of the two is the same. It was called machiyōtla?ōlli (words of example). For example, to describe the word “poetry,” in Nahuatl they say in xōchitl in cuīcalt (the flower, the song) or “his speech” is itla?tōl i?yo (his word, his breath) (Silver & Miller 1997, p. 108).

            Most of what the Aztecs spoke was passed down through speaking and memorization. Being able to speak well and correctly, by knowing the verses taught in school, was a necessary attribute in order to pursue higher ranks. A great warrior could have years of military experience and achievement, but without verbal knowledge, he would never progress far enough. The king of the Aztecs was called tla?toāni(speaker), the one who possessed the greatest ability as an orator, not by having the highest nobility or birth status.

While the Aztecs did have a writing system of glyphs, most of the information in their codices (books) were those of notation. This included taxes, tribute, history, who lived in each city, religious documents, dates, etc. It certainly helped students pursue their studies in memorizing traditional lore. The meaning of “to read” in Nahuatl was pōhua (to count, to relate). It was a way to jog the memory, so to speak. Scribes had considerable prestige in their communities, but without the way of speech, one could never be of greater value in the Aztec way of life (Silver & Miller 1997).

References

Silver, Shirley and Wick R. Miller. 1997. American Indian Languages. Tucson: University of Arizona Press.