The news on the language revitalization front is not good. First, the Navajo Nation weakened its dedication to preserving its own national identity by no longer requiring the president of that nation to be a fluent speaker of the Navajo language. This change is apparently because many younger Navajos lack fluency themselves.
I know from my teaching of Introduction to Native American Studies for over twenty years how many Native Americans understand the issues of language and identity or language and sovereignty issues. Despite not having the data needed to understand those issues, the universal lament of the students is not being able to speak their native language: It somehow lessens them in their own eyes and lays their indigenous identity open to doubt.
Of course, giving up the Navajo language as the national language of the Navajo Nation speaks of the triumph of the on-going assimilation policy of the United States. It literally means more American Indians have lost a unique cultural identity.
The second troubling news is that the percentage of Māori language speakers has dropped by 4 percentage points to a little over 21%. The Māori have been the poster child of indigenous language revitalization. This drop in numbers of te reo Māori speakers reflects the deaths of fluent speakers, who are still mostly older. Of course, this also means that insufficient numbers of children are growing up speaking their heritage language--another victory for assimilation educational policies. This is despite the fact that the Māori have shown that te reo Māori can be used for all aspects of life--religious, family, community, and technology to name a few.
I recently raised the issue of the best role of schools in language revitalization at the 6th Annual American Indian and Indigenous Education Conference at Flagstaff in July. While indigenous languages should be the medium of instruction in schools for indigenous students, too many parents and educators have relied to heavily on this medium. This appears to be the case for the Māori, for example. Any Māori child can now request instruction in the Māori language. However, this is only 1.5 hours a week, an insufficient amount of time for anybody to learn another language.
While change is inevitable always, it does seem that those who carry a minority or indigenous identity must redouble their efforts if anyone is to continue to speak a minority or indigenous language.
Tuesday, July 28, 2015
Wednesday, July 15, 2015
Maintaing the Sacred in language
The opening prayer at the 6th Annual American Indian and Indigenous Language Conference was done by Jim Peshlakai, who began with an anecdote. He related the story of a recent phone call. Someone had called him to see if he (the caller) could come out to train with him to become a shaman. Peshlakai told him a firm 'no' because the sacredness is in the Navajo language.
At this point, I want to review a couple of ideas from the Oxford American Dictionary carried by Mac.
Common--occurring, found, or done often; without special rank or position; not rare.
Sacred--connected with ...gods; regarded with great respect and reverence
In the United States, English is the common language. In a very real sense, indigenous languages, by the nature of the scarcity of speakers, have become sacred languages although I think that Mr. Peshlakai meant that the Navajo language contains all the ideas of the Navajo people and how they see life. Navajo ceremonies are a part of that sacred language and fewer and fewer people are learning that part of the language.
Of course, the journey to learning those ceremonies begins in childhood with the language of the family. This important first step, however, is now too often being skipped as too many Navajo parents cannot speak their own language and their children may be growing up away from their Navajo speaking grandparents, thereby denying the intergenerational transmission of Navajo. Intergenerational transmission is often now replaced with instruction in Navajo language or via Navajo language in school.
Many peoples have pinned their hopes on language instruction in schools, and in some cases this has worked well when parents and communities have come together to support this transmission of their heritage language via school and when schools begin with the use of the language of the family as the first steps. This seems to be the case with Breton, a Gaelic language in Brittany, and even with Sewepemctsin at Adam Lake, BC.
Because of the connection between this intergenerational transmission and the sacredness of indigenous languages, the first language steps need to begin with the family. If the parents don't speak their heritage language, then they need to be supported in these efforts while their children are taking their first steps. This was the original idea behind kohunga reo, While not all parents may be able to come to learn the language with the elders as their babies do, the idea of parents learning the language needs to be encouraged. If a language is to be seated once again in homes, then all generations need to be speaking and/or learning the language.
The best efforts to maintain the sacredness of a language is to support having the languages in the home and the community.
At this point, I want to review a couple of ideas from the Oxford American Dictionary carried by Mac.
Common--occurring, found, or done often; without special rank or position; not rare.
Sacred--connected with ...gods; regarded with great respect and reverence
In the United States, English is the common language. In a very real sense, indigenous languages, by the nature of the scarcity of speakers, have become sacred languages although I think that Mr. Peshlakai meant that the Navajo language contains all the ideas of the Navajo people and how they see life. Navajo ceremonies are a part of that sacred language and fewer and fewer people are learning that part of the language.
Of course, the journey to learning those ceremonies begins in childhood with the language of the family. This important first step, however, is now too often being skipped as too many Navajo parents cannot speak their own language and their children may be growing up away from their Navajo speaking grandparents, thereby denying the intergenerational transmission of Navajo. Intergenerational transmission is often now replaced with instruction in Navajo language or via Navajo language in school.
Many peoples have pinned their hopes on language instruction in schools, and in some cases this has worked well when parents and communities have come together to support this transmission of their heritage language via school and when schools begin with the use of the language of the family as the first steps. This seems to be the case with Breton, a Gaelic language in Brittany, and even with Sewepemctsin at Adam Lake, BC.
Because of the connection between this intergenerational transmission and the sacredness of indigenous languages, the first language steps need to begin with the family. If the parents don't speak their heritage language, then they need to be supported in these efforts while their children are taking their first steps. This was the original idea behind kohunga reo, While not all parents may be able to come to learn the language with the elders as their babies do, the idea of parents learning the language needs to be encouraged. If a language is to be seated once again in homes, then all generations need to be speaking and/or learning the language.
The best efforts to maintain the sacredness of a language is to support having the languages in the home and the community.
Thursday, July 9, 2015
How Easily Language Is Lost
In the 1970's, Philbert and Lucille Watahomogie created an award winning Hualapai/English bilingual program in the Peach Springs elementary school. That elementary school is a public school. When a new superintendent was hired, he decided that the language program would go despite all the data that shows that bilingual children learn faster than monolingual children. So the program was ended. The curriculum was thrown away and eventually burned.
The new superintendent now wants to revive immersion classes in Hualapai. In the interim, a whole generation has been lost. What is at stake here is not just a way a life that has evolved over centuries, but the very lives of young Hualapai. Suicides rates have gone up during this time. This despite the fact that there are growing job opportunities for Hualapai.
I am reminded of the study done in Alaskan Native villages that showed a positive correlation between language loss and suicides. In fact, suicides were completely eliminated in one village by simply reinstating the native language and instructing all the youth and children in the language.
This also reminds me that minority languages need friends to support the efforts of the speakers to reverse the language loss. Saving language diversity is everybody's business
The new superintendent now wants to revive immersion classes in Hualapai. In the interim, a whole generation has been lost. What is at stake here is not just a way a life that has evolved over centuries, but the very lives of young Hualapai. Suicides rates have gone up during this time. This despite the fact that there are growing job opportunities for Hualapai.
I am reminded of the study done in Alaskan Native villages that showed a positive correlation between language loss and suicides. In fact, suicides were completely eliminated in one village by simply reinstating the native language and instructing all the youth and children in the language.
This also reminds me that minority languages need friends to support the efforts of the speakers to reverse the language loss. Saving language diversity is everybody's business
Thursday, July 2, 2015
different education models for minority languages
Lately, I have been examining different school approaches to teaching minority languages.
The Māori probably have the widest selection of services. They are well-known, of course, for their kohunga reo or language nests. To these, they added kura kaupapa Māori schools to include elementary through the equivalence of high school here in the U.S. These schools offer most coursework in te reo Māori, but some classes may be done in English, such as maths. More recently, Māori have gained the right to have instruction in the Māori language in every school. Sometimes, however, this means that the student gets only 1.5 hours per week, far less than is needed to gain any fluency in the language. And indeed the number of speakers have declined in the last 10 years.
Another model is the Canadian model that allows children to begin literacy in their heritage language and transition to English beginning around 4th grade. This model is being used by the Secwepemc, a Salish speaking people in British Columbia at the Chief Atham School. This school begins with the Secwepemc language in immersion preschool and continues through to 9th grade. At fourth grade, instruction begins with English so that by 9th grade the program has become bilingual. The Adams Lake Band is hopeful that this approach will produce speakers of their language.
Another well-known model is the Irish model. After Ireland's independence in 1919, Irish was declared an official language and every Irish child was required to take 12 years of Irish as a subject. Irish speaking children can be educated in the medium of that language. However, the number of native speakers of Irish have continued to decline as have the Irish speaking areas, the Gaeltacht. In fact, the Irish language educators I visited with in Dublin predict that Irish will disappear as a family/community language within one generation. Recent legislation has further weakened the position of Irish in Ireland: Students are no longer required to pass an exam in Irish to graduate and civil servants are no longer required to pass exams in Irish to hold government positions.
Another Gaelic language, Scottish Gaelic, is beginning to appear again in immersion schools. The creation of the Scottish Parliament has supported the interests and use of this language in schools. Attitudes in Scotland by both speakers and non-speakers is quite positive with most people seeing the retention of the language as an important identity marker for Scotland. Instruction via English is introduced around 2nd grade while instruction in Scottish Gaelic still dominates each student's day. Due to these schools, there has been a slight increase of number of speakers or as one headline heralded--the loss has slowed.
The final system I have reviewed are the DIWAN schools in Brittany. The French government really does not want any other language than French in France. Breton, a Gaelic language, is one of those minority languages whose speakers have come together to organize schools, and the French government has reluctantly agreed to allow the schools to operate as private schools with limited supported from the French government. The schools begin in preschool and continue to the equivalent of high school graduation. While Breton remains the primary language of instruction, particularly in mathematics, French instruction begins around age six. Later, these students will add a third language, generally English or German. There has been a positive response by parents to the schools (there are also Catholic bilingual schools) with an increasing number of children enrolled in some kind of education via Breton.
The question is whether putting minority languages into school reverses language loss. It some cases this does seem to be true, particularly when schools are supported by families and communities. Families and communities are the heart of intergenerational transmisstion, so schools have to be closely connected to these two kinds of uses for the use of the language in school to affect any reversal of language loss. As seen with the declining statistics for Māori and Irish, simply having the language in a school does not achieve this. As a consequence, school programs must include family/community uses of language and be strongly connected to both.
The Māori probably have the widest selection of services. They are well-known, of course, for their kohunga reo or language nests. To these, they added kura kaupapa Māori schools to include elementary through the equivalence of high school here in the U.S. These schools offer most coursework in te reo Māori, but some classes may be done in English, such as maths. More recently, Māori have gained the right to have instruction in the Māori language in every school. Sometimes, however, this means that the student gets only 1.5 hours per week, far less than is needed to gain any fluency in the language. And indeed the number of speakers have declined in the last 10 years.
Another model is the Canadian model that allows children to begin literacy in their heritage language and transition to English beginning around 4th grade. This model is being used by the Secwepemc, a Salish speaking people in British Columbia at the Chief Atham School. This school begins with the Secwepemc language in immersion preschool and continues through to 9th grade. At fourth grade, instruction begins with English so that by 9th grade the program has become bilingual. The Adams Lake Band is hopeful that this approach will produce speakers of their language.
Another well-known model is the Irish model. After Ireland's independence in 1919, Irish was declared an official language and every Irish child was required to take 12 years of Irish as a subject. Irish speaking children can be educated in the medium of that language. However, the number of native speakers of Irish have continued to decline as have the Irish speaking areas, the Gaeltacht. In fact, the Irish language educators I visited with in Dublin predict that Irish will disappear as a family/community language within one generation. Recent legislation has further weakened the position of Irish in Ireland: Students are no longer required to pass an exam in Irish to graduate and civil servants are no longer required to pass exams in Irish to hold government positions.
Another Gaelic language, Scottish Gaelic, is beginning to appear again in immersion schools. The creation of the Scottish Parliament has supported the interests and use of this language in schools. Attitudes in Scotland by both speakers and non-speakers is quite positive with most people seeing the retention of the language as an important identity marker for Scotland. Instruction via English is introduced around 2nd grade while instruction in Scottish Gaelic still dominates each student's day. Due to these schools, there has been a slight increase of number of speakers or as one headline heralded--the loss has slowed.
The final system I have reviewed are the DIWAN schools in Brittany. The French government really does not want any other language than French in France. Breton, a Gaelic language, is one of those minority languages whose speakers have come together to organize schools, and the French government has reluctantly agreed to allow the schools to operate as private schools with limited supported from the French government. The schools begin in preschool and continue to the equivalent of high school graduation. While Breton remains the primary language of instruction, particularly in mathematics, French instruction begins around age six. Later, these students will add a third language, generally English or German. There has been a positive response by parents to the schools (there are also Catholic bilingual schools) with an increasing number of children enrolled in some kind of education via Breton.
The question is whether putting minority languages into school reverses language loss. It some cases this does seem to be true, particularly when schools are supported by families and communities. Families and communities are the heart of intergenerational transmisstion, so schools have to be closely connected to these two kinds of uses for the use of the language in school to affect any reversal of language loss. As seen with the declining statistics for Māori and Irish, simply having the language in a school does not achieve this. As a consequence, school programs must include family/community uses of language and be strongly connected to both.
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